WistfulPhilosopher

2010-12-31T15:24:00.000-08:00

An ode from 2010 to the Tune of Don't Leave Me This Way by the Communards:

Don't leave me this way
When you imbibe, Try to keep alive
The memories of this year
Don't live me this way
So much to tell, so much to miss
Togo's cup absence
So don't leave me this way

Uh oh oh, Beyonce full of Grammys and
lights dimmed for Earth
So come on down and do what
you've got to do
Gordon Brown caught in bigot scandal
Now can't you see it's burning, out of
control
Icelandic volcano grounds all flights by
spewing ash
Cos only a coalition can set us
free

Paul don't predict this way
I don't understand how I'm at your
command
Steve Jobs: please don't hold it that
way.

Don't leave me this way
Cos she can't exist
A spy in our midst
Her deadly kiss
So don't leave me this way

Oh Anna, my heart is full of love and
desire for you...

Don't leak me this way
Cos I can't survive, I can't stay alive
In Chile, far underground
Don't lift me this way
I can't get pissed, Give uni a miss
cant afford this
So don't leave me this way

Oh FIFA, my heart is full of pain and
regret for you...

2010-01-25T14:27:00.000-08:00

Ireland Update

Ok, so far, having looked at the data and all the events I now seem to have a rough outline of an itinerary for my planned road trip around the Emerald Isle by car hire Ireland. The only thing is, to fit everything in I think I may have to do a figure of eight.

The month is June.

Well, May. The start is Dublin: 24^ttMay.

For on the 25^th Frankie Boyle hits the town. Then drive out to Portlaoise and then a left kink down to Kilkenny for the Carlsberg Cat Laughs Comedy Festival takes place in Kilkenny from June the 3rd to June the 7^th. Then on to Cork via Tipperary for the Cork Midsummer Festival June 12^th –June 27^th. Then head back up to Dublin through Limerick and Birr in time to catch Pink on the 19^th June.

That's loop 1. Loop 2 takes place out from Dublin the next day (or day after if you catch my drift.....) back down to Kerry via Galway to see the Kerry Fleadh on June the
26^th and take in the Ring of Kerry. More soon.

2010-01-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

Ireland/Kerry Update.

As promised towards the end of 2009 and after a hectic start to the new year here is a bit more on the proposed road trip around Ireland by car hire, Dublin.

There is of course the fabulous Ring of Kerry to visit as mentioned last time and I have found various sites of information. Apparently the Ring can take many visits to really appreciate the spectacular views but at least a day trip is recommended so that is the timing for the itinerary sorted! Also mention of a Valencia Island, which as a frequent traveler to the beautiful Spanish city of the same name is definitely added to the itinerary.

If that was not enough I have also found out that the Kerry Fleadh takes place in June this year, on the 26th, thus adding another point to a June centric calendar which would suggest I might be missing Rhod Gilbert and his award winning mince pie.....

GP2 Series // News

2010-01-11T05:38:00.001-08:00

Well one of my favourite all time F1 racers Michael Schumacher is back. I wrote a blog about his 'retirement' back in 2006 So Long which stated my continued support for Ferrari and a pledge to support Felipe Massa.

Now Schumi is back I am delighted but also a little torn between the Prancing Horse and the Silver Arrows, Massa and Schumacher.

In the build up to his return he is helping to develop the next GP2 series car. This is the F1 feeder series where I got some first hand motor sport journalism experience via the Bridgestone e-reporter contest.

GP2 Series // News

Blogged with the Flock Browser

2009-12-29T05:11:00.000-08:00

Ireland Update.

Over Christmas I have, unfortunately, not had much time to look up many more events to add to the provisional calendar for my proposed road trip by car hire Ireland.

Catching up with a friend of mine who has good local knowledge did enable me to add some more places to add to the provisional itinerary. I had mentioned Cork, Dublin, Galway and Kilkenny.

Now to add to that list is Kerry! For the purposes of the road trip there is the famous Ring of Kerry (or Iveragh Peninsula to give it its correct name) which is full of beautiful, unspoilt scenery and numerous little villages.

So that shall be my new year research-to add the delights of Kerry to the itinerary. More soon.

2009-12-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Ireland Update.

Last time I wrote about a calendar of events in Cork and said that I would amalgamate events by month and plan the road trip by Car Hire Dublin, around the one with the most events.

It has been another hectic month, including taking in various football matches and even filing a report for one. However among my research I did find out that the Carlsberg Cat Laughs Comedy Festival takes place in Kilkenny from June the 3rd to June the 7th.

That is another notch in June's column. In Cork five days later the Cork Midsummer Festival takes place and on the 19th Pink plays Dublin. Alternatively Frankie Boyle plays Dublin on the 25th May so this does look like a good month.

However I may also check to see who else may be around Ireland and when they are going. More on that possibly in the next update!

2009-11-22T13:44:00.000-08:00

Ireland Update:

Last time I noted on the calendar several events taking place in Dublin. However, as the plan is to do a road trip by Car Hire, Ireland I have had a look at some of the other places I want to visit such as Cork. From April onwards Cork is certainly living up to its cultural billing:

April 2010

21/04/2010 - 25/04/2010 Cork World Book Fest

A celebration of literary works with

exhibitions, author readings and

events in the cities libraries.

As a book lover that does sound right up my street but there is more

June 2010

12/06/2010 - 27/06/2010 Cork Midsummer Festival

The highlight of the Cork Summer

Calendar, includes theatrical

productions, street performances,

and Live at the Marquee.

Again, love theatre etc so sounds like that could be a blast but that's not all Cork has on offer:

July 2010

July 2010

10/07/2010 - 16/07/2010 Cork Week

One of Ireland biggest sailing

events, with entertainment and

events all week.

So where to begin? Well next I think I will keep collating all the other events then tally them off, the cluster of the most wins....probably!

2009-11-13T13:54:00.001-08:00

Ireland Road Trip Update.

I have had more time this week to do some more research on possible events and dates for the proposed car hire Dublin road trip round Ireland. Here is a provisional calendar to be mixed, matched and whittled down:

Dublin

MARCH 2010

20^th Rhod Gilbert-already discussed

MAY 2010

9^th Jamie Cullum

25^th Frankie Boyle-another comedian I'd like to see live even if he can be a bit close, if not over the knuckle!

JUNE

19^th Pink-The singer, like some of her tracks so would love to see her Carnival show.

SEPTEMBER

2-4^th Dara O'Briain-Yes, another comedian but abslutely great, love how he can take even the most mundane and turn it into an adventure.

Only thing is that's a big spread of months so something in there will have to give.

More news soon with other cities/towns as so far this is very Dublin centric!

2009-10-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

Ireland Update.

Talking of Gordon Strachan in my last post seemed like another one of those strange coincidences that sail by on the maelstrom of life. Within ten days the master of the quick word, “Velocity”, returns to management at the expense of Gareth Southgate.

My personal view on the firing of managers before all the leaves have fallen from the trees can be found elsewhere on this blog but it is of interest in this case because Strachan reveals his round the world plans were shortened to just California and Galway.

The new Middlesbrough gives me the following travel advice for my forthcoming road trip round the Emerald Isle by Car Hire, Ireland.

"I drove round the west coast of Ireland in the summer. It rained every day but it was stunning."

So that will be a camera and some waterproofs to add to the packing list then!

2009-10-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

Another week or so that seems to have just whirled by in a maelstrom of events. Been setting up my new machine as the old workhorse, dependable as it is, has been left behind in the techno arms race.

Frankly 512mb RAM is like Gordon Strachan's proverbial water pistol against the bunker busting missiles of 4Gb Ram.

Also on the to do list was revisiting one of my former universities for a series of career seminars as well as various writing tasks. I am also aiming to write a few sports related blogs in the next few weeks for various outside blogs as well as some political/non-sports related ones for Old Wistful here. Travel plan blogging is ticking over nicely and the trip will be great I am sure but some long form writing would be nice also.

All of which has left the road trip around Ireland, via Car Hire, Dublin on the waiting list. So far to recap, I have a general idea of route and places to visit but only one event to 'peg' the skeleton but unfortunately that is in March. A little early for my liking but when the event is Mr Rhod Gilbert well.....

Need I say more?

2009-09-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

As a former student of history I decided that another factor to consider in my road trip around Ireland could be to look at Irish history. Places mentioned in history could then be added to the itinerary. During my preliminary reading in the last week, I have decided that Kilkenny would make an excellent candidate. Kilkenny would also help with the trip, by car hire, Ireland as it ‘evens’ up the route. Currently I have Dublin as the start finish and Galway, Limerick and Cork but these would leave a bit of a hole between Dublin and Cork. Kilkenny would help plug this gap. More soon.

2009-09-20T01:54:00.000-07:00

I have been fairly busy with one thing or another; caught up with some friends and trying to work on a few creative writing projects some of which require some background research. I also got given another assignment by an online website-unfortunately it is an unpaid piece but keeps the hand in. All of which means, however, I have not had a chance to look at events for the possible car hire Ireland road trip. I did however find a 1p whilst sifting through my paperwork. What is the significance? Well, you may simply dismiss this as new age phooey or whatever but it turns out this was not just any penny, this was a penny from Eire. Sure, a coincidence, but still one of those strange coincidences that get you musing on whether there really is more out ‘there’. I want to believe. I want to believe this road trip is meant to be so, hopefully more next week when my schedule looks a little less hectic writing and event wise.

2009-09-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

Currently been busy with helping sort out some old paperwork, which was long overdue as well as some other business to attend to. One such piece was an article for the Bleacher Report on football as well as a few applications for a few things. With the weather promised to turn nasty, indeed as I write this the threat of rain looms lurch in the form of a perma-gloom, some garden tending also called.

All of which means I have had few moments to have a look at possible events to add to the Ireland road trip, although the brief looks I have managed to have have not presented any opportunities. So far Rhod Gilbert in Dublin is it! However, just looking at the route, the idea is to kick of and end in Dublin, car hire Dublin, and visit at least Galway, Limerick and Cork. The meat that needs to be added to the plans bones is events, that way the direction-clockwise or other-will become clear. Ah well, hopefully next week can have a more in depth event hunt!

2009-08-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hmm...

Been extremely busy over the last few weeks so have not had much time to think or research an itinerary for the provisional 2010 car hire Ireland road trip. Some of you, admittedly small in number, have indeed begun to ask about what I am thinking about. This is particularly in light of the fact that some of my circumstances are not ideal but yes, I am hoping to do it, I think it will be fun. The current idea now is to hunt around for events like a scattergun that sound interesting and where they are then whittle them down. Like a sculptor or carpenter creating his masterpiece from the block of rock and wood. This idea has presented itself because I was hoping for a summer extravaganza when my preliminary research stumbled upon a problem. March to be precise. Or Dublin. Or most pertinently, Rhod Gilbert, the Welsh wizard of comedy, is meant to performing there. If the words tog, ratings and system mean nothing to you, or indeed if they do but in a horrible nightmare way, go and look for his skit about it on Youtube. Pure genius.

More ideas soon, plus, to help me out, fire some my way if you find an event.

2009-07-31T12:12:00.001-07:00

I have had a mixed week this week. Started out fairly relaxed, chilling with a friend of mine who was back in the area. As the week has worn on though it has got increasingly hectic. Case in point was the mad Tuesday scramble for jobs after which I then had a serous Xbox session with my mate. Wednesday he went to pick up his car and sitting in his dad’s car I noticed an Ireland road map. Still have not got a ‘mapped’ out itinerary yet for the road trip using Car Hire Dublin but that looked like a sign. Or a reminder depending of your viewpoint seeing as I also saw the new Satnav application for the iPhone, so I’d probably be using that! Just a case of getting a job to get the funds together but while I wait I’m going to check for any events next summer. Anybody find any let me know.

2009-07-27T05:49:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit busy the last few weeks, with various interviews, job searches, meeting up with a few pals and getting enthralled in the fantastic cricket. I am certainly hoping England can pull off another summer 2005 and win but still expect the Australians to come back strong with at least one victory. Edgbaston could well be it with the ‘injury swing’ going in the Aussies favour, the probable return of Brett Lee and the sidelined Kevin Pietersen for England. All this means is that the planning of the Ireland road trip itinerary, where the idea is to car hire, Dublin has not got much further but is definitely something I am thinking of but probably for 2010, keep you posted!

2009-06-30T05:10:00.000-07:00

This weather is both a gift and a curse. As a country and a nation we are obsessed by the weather, and the weather, for us, never gets it right! In the winter the weather is too cold, or too wet and now, in the summer it is too hot.

However it has got me to thinking a bit more firmer about any possible holiday plans. I am still very excited about going on a holiday/possible road trip to Ireland by car rental Dublin. Not sure of the exact date, maybe this year in September, but with the weather like this in June and Ireland usually cooler and breezier I may try and go either earlier this year or a similar time next. However, it also depends on the calendar of events happening at the time, friend availability and various other factors. There is Rally Ireland to consider as well, so I may be planning a little while longer, sheltered under damp towel, drinking ice cold water while my computer struggles with its poor fan to cope with the heat-my desktop weather centre reporting 26 degrees C! Apparently that is not the peak for the week though!

2009-06-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

I have been reading about Adam Carroll’s A1GP success and I am fervently hoping that he will be one of the beneficiaries of the increase in teams on the F1 grid for next year. The inclusion of Manor for example raises intriguing possibilities for the Irish ace, as a new team may be more inclined to take on his undoubted talent. On the other hand, if Nico Rosberg’s proposed move to BMW goes ahead Williams would seem an ideal match for the 26 year old from Portadown. The news and possibilities have also reminded me of getting back to planning my trip to Ireland with its plan to visit a variety of towns and sites along the way, making a road trip style itinerary by car rental, Ireland. Still unsure when to go as yet, as a motorsport fan other considerations are also on the horizon……

2009-06-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Fever Pitch

(With apologies to Nick Hornby)

Football is boiling over; the frenetic stories of the last few weeks threaten to drown the few lights of decency in football. Men like Sir Trevor Brooking, Ryan Giggs (a true one club player and a legend with it). Men of their word, like Gianfranco Zola who famously turned down Roman Abramovich to honour a promise with his hometown club of Cagliari. Men such as Guus Hiddink, who despite considerable pressure, both in the bitter aftermath of the Champions League semi-final second leg and in the face of widespread chanting to stay, kept his dignity and his word.

Then there is the other side of modern football, well, top-flight football. The side of football particularly evidenced at this time of year, in the money sloshed around in transfer fees and player wages. The long running Tevez saga, for example, which to my mind should have been resolved by FIFA and very simply too by stating all players can only be registered to clubs and not individuals or agencies.

The ‘supposed’ bidding war, denied by all parties, between Chelsea and Real Madrid for the services of AC Milan’s Kaka. A war that inflated his price to around £70m. This following the January nonsense involving the same player and Manchester City with a figure in the £100m bracket. On that occasion Kaka said he could not leave AC Milan, particularly because of the fans. Really? Or, having heard some of the ludicrous and surely made up demands of his advisory team (led by his father, Bosco Leite), including a whopping 10m plus euro commission for his father, was it a case that certain elements felt they would not get enough slice in their cake?

The side of football that means players like Cristiano Ronaldo, however great he is with a football, state with no sense of humility, remorse or irony that as a special player he would be worthy of being in any such £100m plus transfer bracket. At a time when the average football attending Premier League fan is being credit crunched, finding it increasingly hard to keep going to matches at home, let alone away.

Astonishingly look at the figures again and read something else. Newcastle, recently relegated, owned by Mike Ashley who is looking to sell the club, supported by over 50,000 passionate fans at St James’ Park every other week, for between £100m-£150m. Or one and a half Cristiano Ronaldos in other words.

Is this still making any sense to people out there? We have had the scandals of Westminster, of the banking system, but the way football is going, we have already surpassed the sums of MP’s expenses and are supercharging our way to bank loss proportions.

Compare this to Formula One. A sport that is usually derided by non fans for being a playboy's playground, a rich man's paradise, an expensive hobby past its sell by date. A sport actively trying to work out a way to move forward in the current economic climate and reduce spending. The teams spat out their dummies, baulking at the prospect of an immediate budget cap of around £40m. £40m!!!! Bear in mind that although engine costs, driver pay, marketing and hospitality, as well as any fines and penalties meted out by the FIA were not included, this figure was still to run a two-car team operation for an entire year. That is almost half a Kaka in current football transfer market conditions. No wonder the teams wanted it raised or introduced incrementally among other issues.

I could go on with the way money is making football turn ugly, about the nightclubs, the punch-ups, the hangers on and the imbecilic behaviour of players in their teens and early twenties given riches, beyond even some millionaires’ (who worked a lifetime to earn it) dreams, in an instant. I won’t though. I am too bewildered and bothered but through the deluge of banknotes I can see a way out. I have set myself my own get out clause in my love of football.

It will pain me, because I love the game so, but like a relationship gone wrong the game is turning into something I don’t like. The game on the pitch is arguably better than ever at seducing me, but off the pitch football is committing behaviour akin to abuse, battering me over the head with ugly stories. UEFA were concerned about Didier Drogba’s behaviour after the Champions League semi-final second leg and rightly so, but if they really wanted to repair football’s fraying image, they need to coordinate with FIFA and set a transfer cap and a budget cap for all teams as well as an overall salary cap for teams.

My get out clause? The first £100m player and or £200,000 a week player. That will be my straw, on my arthritic camel's back.

(Images courtesy of Fabbio and Shareski, flickr users)

2009-06-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

My Dilemma……

……was whether to vote at all and if so which way to cast my vote. At every local and general election that I have been able to, I have voted yet this time I did not know whether to use it. Usually I have exercised the right to vote, partly because it is a right that took a lot of blood and tears to be won. Partly because it is as Rousseau alluded the one time when we are truly free: “The people of England thinks itself free; but it is free only during the parliamentary elections. As soon as they are over, slavery overtakes them, and they are nothing. The use they make of the brief moments of liberty shows indeed that it deserves to lose it.”

How else are we to explain the fact that one of the most rotten governments and indeed parliaments still sits while the public was raging at the scandal of expenses?

A scandal which, this needs reiterating, engulfs all parties. One which seeing everyone scrambling to show how ‘honest’ they are. Labour and Gordon Brown are keen to argue that as they are in Government they can best put a system in place to prevent this happening again. Fixing the system. Lets leave aside for a minute the system, as worded, is actually fine and rather it is the individual MP’s own sense of moral propriety. Sadly it seems a fairly large number seem to have a very low sense of propriety.

To add to the mix, Hazel Blears one of the major examples of playing the system lottery, resigned in a move calculated to cause maximum damage to her mortal enemy Gordon Brown. There are yet more cabinet resignations with James Purnell’s departure this evening. The results of the elections will surely finish Gordon Brown.

However, I give a warning to Blears, Purnell et al in the Labour Party. Be careful what you wish for. In my mind, while I acknowledge we have a PARTY system and not a PRESIDENTIAL system and thus it is parties, which ultimately choose the Prime Minister (the leader of the winning party), not the public, two changes of PM without a general election is unthinkable. An election now is the worst thing for the country and will be a disaster for Labour. Seen as self-serving, torn by division, the only thing Labour will get is a hammering in the polls. A rampant Conservative government would be installed with a large majority and the whole swing from one elective dictatorship to another will begin anew. Not what the country needs; over emboldened governments faced by feeble oppositions.

,Labour should be trying to get to the set election date. By then, they might have some good news on which to fight a rearguard action. They will lose the next election. That is certain. However, an election fought with some economic recovery, due towards the end of the election cycle could enable Labour to rally to a stronger opposition hand than if they go now. Blears and Purnell are just committing acts of reckless treachery, acts that I hope will be rectified at the next general election. As for my vote? I exercised my right and looking at the carnage of this evening I am glad I did.

2009-06-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

Investigating my possible future trip to Ireland I have been looking at other items to add to the itinerary, particularly if I do decide to use car hire Ireland to take in more than one city at a time. Interestingly, there is an exhibition in Dublin at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham, Dublin from the 6^th June to September showcasing the work of British artist Lucian Freud. I think it is probably too short notice to go this month though, would be nice to go with a large group of friends, but also this month is a festival celebrating James Joyce and his classis Ulysses, on 16^th June at Sandycove, Dublin.

2009-06-03T00:17:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking of the Emerald Isle for a few weeks now, having last visited quite a few years ago. Last time I visited I took in the eclectic mix that Dublin has to offer. I paid the usual tourist dues of visiting Temple Bar but also took the chance to have a look at the grandeur of Dublin University, particularly Trinity College. Mind you, I had a great local tour guide, a Cork lass who had moved to Dublin. This has influenced my thoughts on planning a trip, seeing that quite a few Irish greats hail from Cork, Roy Keane and Cillian Murphy among them. The idea is to fly to Dublin, revisiting Temple Bar in particular, get a car from Car Hire Dublin and drive down to Cork to see the sights the city has to offer including The English Market

2009-05-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

The Battle of Stamford Bridge,....

.....oh dear oh dear, where to begin with this nonsense. The end maybe, Drogba.

What on earth was Drogba thinking?

His behaviour has shocked and appalled pretty much everyone without a Chelsea blue tint in their eye. All I can suggest is Drogba is not known for being a great man at the best of times, petulance and his low pain threshold are well documented. Thus, faced with a situation that would test a saint's patience or indeed say, Gianfranco Zola's, perhaps there can be little wonder the more combustible Drogba, well, exploded.

I am not defending his actions, just more of how he got to them. I cannot think of a comparable situation, other than say an instance where you know the truth of what you are saying but no-one else will believe or listen to you. It can be very hard to maintain a cool outward persona in such circumstances. As far as Drogba was concerned there had been at least four penalty shouts all dismissed by the referee, a situation highly rare, particularly in the modern game.

This is not to say he, or Ballack, were, as professional footballers, correct in their actions.

Drogba though is culpable of more than just his antics at the end. To be honest, his rolling around and petulant behaviour on the pitch probably meant the referee felt his penalty claim was an attempt at cheating and that may have tainted his view on the others. Drogba also failed to score on at least two occasions were he may have done better, if he wants to label anyone disgraceful he could start by looking closer to home.

Abidal card was harsh.

The sending off of Abidal was not only harsh but wrong, utterly incompetent. Abidal may have warranted at least a yellow on one or two other occasions for which he received nothing but on this occasion even a yellow would have been harsh. He barely, emphasis on the barely, clipped Anelka who then, possibly, was nudged into clipping his own feet and falling over. Freekick debatable but not a sending off.

The problem was that the referee Tom Henning Ovrebo had by this point completely lost the thread of the game he probably felt he had to do something to assuage a team and crowd that had, however wrongly, turned ugly towards him.

This, to be honest, thinking about it is not his fault. The fact he is reportedly receiving death threats is the biggest disgrace of the whole sorry affair. More scandalous than his performance. Somewhere in between though is UEFA's refereeing selection decision.

UEFA referee call baffles.

Why on earth pick a referee from the footballing giant of Norway for such a huge semi-final? Were the German referees on strike? Perhaps the Portugese referees were on holiday and a Dutch referee would not do as he would favour Hiddink surely? Yet these are all nations whose teams have won the European cup within the last 15 years. Yes the bigger nations referees have made mistakes in games, just like the Italian Roberto Rosetti in the preceding Semi-Final but not to this extent of incompetence.

There were in total six possible penalty claims, two were puffs of nonsense but the four were: Malouda being baulked inside the area. Possibly as Malouda was to the far side of the goal not a clear goal scoring opportunity, but a foul was committed, inside the box and the defender made no attempt to turn and play the ball. Make of it what you will.

Drogba being tugged back by his shirt. Seen them given but frankly he probably had time before and during the pull to attempt to unleash a shot and well, Drogba has gone into negative equity where benefit of the doubt is concerned.

Handball Pique. As far as I am concerned stonewall.

Handball Eto'o, desperate and would have been harsh on the man but after the previous claims and so forth, I have seen these given as well, particularly in certain other arenas.

Best two teams in the final?

But enough. The great myth being passed around now by Chelsea detractors is two attacking teams are in the final and Chelsea are defensive. Well lets look at the stats:

Chelsea Team Statistics Barcelona

1 Goals 1

1 1st Half Goals 0

4 Shots on Target 1

5 Shots off Target 8

4 Blocked Shots 5

6 Corners 6

16 Fouls 17

5 Offsides 0

4 Yellow Cards 3

0 Red Cards 1

69.7 Passing Success 87.7

23 Tackles 18

69.6 Tackles Success 77.8

29.1 Possession 70.9

42.1 Territorial Advantage 57.9

Chelsea may have had less possession but matched them almost apart from 1 (13 shots in total to Barca's 14) for chances and Chelsea's were the more potent (4 on target to Barca's 1). As for defensive, I think it is naive to leave a team so overly biased to attacking room and anybody who suggests it is clever to do so is frankly an idiot. Football involves defending and attacking, otherwise we might as well have a system of team attack, miss, then opposition team attack miss and so forth until a team scores than the opposition starts the cycle off again. Not football. You change tactics accordingly and when faced with such a forward line of Eto'o, Messi etc, of course you will be more cautious.

My question instead is, for all that possession and attacking force, how come Barcelona did not have at least TWICE the chance ration as Chelsea? The answer is to me they look good attacking but a lot of it is powder puff possession that damages no-one in the middle of the park, waiting for the opposition to fall into disorganisation. A lot of the teams, apart from Real Madrid, that Barcelona have carved up in La Liga would allow the likes of Middlesbrough and Newcastle to breathe easy freed from relegation fears if they were in the Premier League.

Chelsea gave, up until the equalizer and final whistle, a mature performance. Barca cannot cope with strong organised defences. Thus to me the final is probably going to be a whitewash. I think if Manchester United keep their heads, though as a Chelsea fan I loathe to say it, at some stage they could be 3-0 up. Barca might get one back but I think Manchester United are going to make yet more history. Chelsea would have given a better game in terms of keeping the final alive throughout 90 minutes. Barca will turn up, look pretty but get battered on last nights performance.

2009-03-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Have had a bit of a hectic month and a half with one thing and another.

Been following the Blues as usual and have added an article on Bleacher Report on the upcoming quarter final clash against Liverpool.

In addition I have visited the Science Museum to see what the fuss was about their lates and I must say very impressive. Punk Science certainly deserve to be turning away 250 people from the too small theatre at the museum, full of energy and fun. The ability to walk around the museum and play with various exhibits brings back that thrill of being a kid and learning about things in a playground environment-I may sound positively easily amused but I was chuffed at smacking three bits of wood and just from the noise working out the rotten one!

The Listening Post was exactly as the description says, a symphony, more a work of art than science. To explain if you are still here and in my own words, the creators Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin have made several movements made out of random internet messages on forums which appear as scrolling text, either in full paragraphs or 'old style' cinema scrollers, or are conveyed by electronic voice. The pitching and selection of pieces for the voices to read almost harmonise and convey rhythm, if there is a sound of the internet this is it.

2009-02-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

Oh No......

.....not again!

Well here we go again. Sitting at my computer flicking around the sports pages on the internet, feeling angry for Tony Adams even though I don't support Pompey, whatever happened to giving guys a chance I thought when I came across the latest managerial casualty. Scolari sacked as Chelsea manager was the headline. Whatever happened to he was the outstanding choice?

Look, I was at the Hull game, I heard the chants, the mood was ugly and one or two fans were muttering about whetting their knives for Scolari. What did not help Big Phil was the inexplicable decision to take off Quaresma, the new signing, who had been one of the better players, especially for Drogba. Nothing against the Ivory Coast hitman in fact but on the previous Thursday, I attended an event with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink who pointed out Drogba played better with wingers and here he was, taking off a winger. Strange, to say the least.

However, having said all that, I am not a fan of removing managers midway through a season or this, as Sir Alex Ferguson has said, lack of patience. I did not like Grant for example, but given time he was improving and showing his worth. Again, I felt his dismissal was far too early. As was Claudio Ranieri's.

Roman Abramovich is turning into quite the managerial hitman. Four in six years is quite a rate. I do not think there are enough quality managers to keep that rate up! Unbelievable. What makes it worse is the air of inevitability about it. Scolari started off so brightly and I was hoping that the start would continue so that I would be shown up for my naivety. Unfortunately, my prediction came true, and now there is indeed egg on some very big faces. Not least of all Chelsea football club and their sugar daddy owner.

Roman Abramovich, for all his business acumen and millions, which he is clutching on to ever tighter these days, in the current economic climate where only oil money seems to grow in fields, has failed to understand football.

New managers always want an overhaul of squads, one of Scolari's gripes, the failure to bag him Robinho has been costly. The Brazilian has been every bit as brilliant as I hoped. Gallingly, it is in the blue of Man City and not Chelsea. However Abramovich's biggest mistake is not seing the need for stability, or past Mourinho's outbursts in the press for what they are-part of the brinkmanship of modern football. The state Chelsea are in returns us to another prophetic warning I laid out in a university newspaper article I wrote in 2007 reproduced here in full:

Mourtal Mistake

Jose Mourinho has his critics and much as he aims to be he is not perfect. However the events of recent weeks have served to make one thing clear. Mourinho is important to Chelsea and possibly the Premiership as a whole. If Chelsea sack or allow Mourinho to leave they would be making a catastrophic error. The events have made this clear as the rumours of unhappiness in the squad and the rumours of Mourinho’s departure have forced a re-examination of his achievements. Mourinho won the Premiership in his first season in charge and in a country that was not his own. This is a mark of a special manager. He has also changed the level of achievement in the Premiership. In his first season in charge Chelsea got a record points haul. The second season they also reached a ninety plus target. This in turn forced Sir Alex Ferguson, one of the best managers in the world to concede Man Utd’s historic approach of charging in the second half of seasons was no longer enough. To win the Premiership now a team must, much like Arsenal in their unbeaten year, have a consistent run, start to finish with few mistakes. Mourinho has helped accelerate that process. Mourinho has also helped bring on English players. For all the talk of big transfers, money and one or two mistakes-Shaun Wright-Phillips for example- who have not worked out, look at the squad again. When he came he was determined to keep the English spine to the squad declaring himself happy with the “best defender in the world” John Terry and the “best midfielder in the world” Frank Lampard. Sven Goran Erikksson criticised Joe Cole for not being more than a creative flair player but failed to galvanise the midfielder into a more rounded player. Mourinho however did. At the World Cup Joe Cole was arguably one of England’s better performers and made a fair fist of the troublesome left midfield position. Mourinho may be under pressure but it is pressure of his own making and there is no problem in that. Despite missing some key players through injury-both main goalkeepers, John Terry, Joe Cole even, Chelsea remain six points behind United. Chelsea are in both domestic competitions and the Champions League. As the latter competition returns Cech is ready to play, albeit with protective headwear, and Terry is not far behind. Thus any rifts, any desires by backroom forces would be ridiculous. The rumours smack of non-football related fears. That some expensive players, contractually and transfer fee, and the cost may not be returned immediately. If Chelsea fails to win this season, projects such as Peter Kenyon’s China trip in recent weeks would be less successful. Nobody but die-hard fans support an unsuccessful team. However, with Mourinho in charge, without interference, trophies will be won. He is a winner. He has won four leagues in a row. If money has been overspent than Chelsea should have been firmer from the beginning,. a player’s value should be similar regardless of who is calling. Again, regardless of whom Mourinho asked for, the club should be run as a business and some of Chelsea’s decisions have been poor business. That’s not up to Mourinho so those errors lay elsewhere. Than there are the alternatives: Mourinho is one of the youngest managers to employ. Guss Hiddink may be a great manager but he will for at least one season be following his PSV patterns and also managing a national side. Much as his management has worked wonders, the Premiership may test that juggling act. In addition he does not like the kind of press scrutiny the English game generates. Marcello Lippi has also been named as a contender but he is fifteen years senior than Mourinho and would have to learn English. Therefore it is evident that for his age and his abilities Mourinho would be a big loss to Chelsea and any decent board would try everything in their power to retain him.

The fact as we all know, is they didn't. I just hope, irony of ironies, Mourinho does not achieve what Inter hired him for, the Champions League. It would be his greatest and most satisfying victory. The biggest reply to the events that saw him ousted from what could have been a throne as long lasting as Sir Alex Ferguson's.

2009-02-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Snow madness!

I have posted this to throw my two cents into the snow storm that was whipped up this morning after the chaos that has left commuters stranded this evening and struggling to get to work if at all today.

Firstly the chaos actually started last night and I was caught up in it. I went to the Liverpool v Chelsea game at Anfield. That should have been enough misery for one night but oh no! Last night was going for last tube around midnight to Wimbledon from Fulham after getting back on the coach!. Gates closed, I was turned away tubes finished cos of weather so go to bus stop, first one that stops driver gets out-no buses we are going straight for depot no pickups.

Absolutely stark raving annoying, a bit of snow and the country goes to pot, Boris Johnson now blaming the quantities-erm, well, gritting may have ended up being overwhelmed but it might have helped it from starting to settle thereby mitigating some of the worst of it. I saw no evidence of gritting already done or in progress.

Taxis wouldn't go anywhere really outside London, I live outside London. Besides, did not have the money for a taxi and by extension a room for the night. In addition, correctly as it turned out, I surmised holing up for the night still would not solve anything as nothing would move today and so I would still be stuck in London. Only one thing to do WALK! In the snow flurries. I walked along part of the A3 in places and I did not see any gritters till six this morning, so much for doing all they can, ice and snow already taken hold by then.

Eventually I get a train at Surbiton quarter to ten 14 miles away from where I started and get to a station 5 miles from home. That means I walked a total of 19 miles in the snow, much of it overnight in the coldest and most heavy flurries. So, while I sympathise with commuters, they really only caught the middle of it :-) Even on the last four miles one council has gritted but the other one failed to (my walk crosses two boroughs), the road up the hill to Brooklands College was like an ice rink and hardly any grit, some guys had stopped and were helping to marshal traffic and put down sand. Who these guys were god knows, two had Hi-Vis jackets but the other three looked like civvies so no idea if council approved or some good Samaritans doing what the council should have.

Also throughout my walk home saw lots of people in cars skidding under the slowest of speeds. It was a case of being safer walking. Also the usual mix of ace drivers-going slow with hazards on and idiots going too fast, beeping those going cautiously, one woman attempting to overtake a slow lorry up the aforementioned ice rink, I mean, what was she thinking the lorry was going slow for? Not to mention the bottle neck at the top of the hill where two or three cars had slid into each other which meant traffic could only go through on one side. She semi skidded and she went to pull out, saw the carnage further up the road and suddenly saw sense and pulled in. Behind her another car stuck in the traffic was honking his horn, wtf? Why?!!! Where the hell does he think people are going to go?

I was glad to get home and go to sleep.

2009-01-29T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have been bad......

.....very bad. I have not uploaded anything for a while so here I am dusting down the cobwebs.

Since my last post I have been doing a lot of travelling, taking in Monza, as part of Bridgestone's five year celebrations.

This year's competition is open for entries.

The circuit itself was awesome, as a Ferrari fan to be at one of Italy's iconic circuits and hear the roar of the F1 machines ...well, it was a day of personal heaven for me! A magical experience despite all the mud, after the deluge that helped highlight the sport's latest German superstar. Sebastian Vettel did not put a foot wrong all weekend and watching him drive away lap after lap, despite Ferrari's poor showing, made the sun shine despite the damp conditions. I would certainly urge anyone who has not been to go. I certainly cannot wait to make another pilgrimage.

As well as Monza, near Milan, I have gone slightly Italian crazy in my travel plans. I have been to Rome before as a youngster and finally the Trevi magic weaved it's spell and once more I took in The Eternal City. Those of you who know me well will know that football was involved, and as a Chelsea fan with a fondness for some of the European teams, Roma being the ones I follow in Serie A, it was a perfect match up. Of course, the result did not go according to plan being a Chelsea fan first, all others second, but the Stadio Olimpico was grander than I expected and the trouble did seem far away. In fact with some good stewarding, a small incident was easily contained from becoming explosive. However, knowing the match was against Roma, I decided to go for a week and revisit some sites I had seen before as well as visit some new ones. The Colosseum never fails to break my neck in its sheer size and as the blueprint for stadiums, what with the match coming up I ended up idly comparing Olimpico and the Colosseum. In their respective eras both heaving with fervent 'fans' roaring on the action in the middle, a visit to the Colosseum would certainly have been a must for any self respecting Roman. Not so much for the early Christians though. Visiting the Catacombs on the Appian way was an eye-opening and educational experience, being taken down by a guide and walked through the catacombs really bought the history and the early fraught beginnings of the religion to live. There was a calm, serene quality to the atmosphere, whether it was simply the thought that this was once sanctuary to so many or something more spiritual is open to one's personal view. I, however, found that it was a beautiful silence and stillness to the air which is very rare in modern life, certainly in contrast to the hustle and bustle of the nearby city. As I had always wanted to visit the catacombs since seeing them in tour books I bought the first time, it was a journey I enjoyed making. This was especially the case as I made the trip on the Thursday. Earlier in the week I had made an early morning dash to the prefecture on the Tuesday for the Pope's open audience address on the Wednesday. The ability to see both the early sites of Christian worship and burial and the modern seat of the leader of Catholicism created a reverential, even spiritual experience.

Apart from the travelling I have also been sprucing up some fiction work and trying to get that side of my writing passion working again as well as taking time out seeing friends and family. Now though I really should get back to this non-fiction blog and some journalistic writing.

I shall start with a few loose ends.

The new F1 machines look a lot nicer in my opinion than the 2008 cars although I still remain unconvinced by the front wings. The other interesting factor I have noticed is the differing nose cone shapes with some going for 'fat and squat' shapes and others smaller more 'beak'shaped noses.

I have also doing a lot of reading and one article on the Times website caught my eye in particular. Well, seems I was musing right but will it actually happen? I hope so, I am a big fan of hard discs and video streaming such as iPlayer and so forth but the infrastrucutre needs to catch up with hardware.

I am currently working on setting up a few work pieces and these should be helping to start the blog counter revving up again. The hardest post I find though is the first one after a long absence so that debt is now served.

2008-07-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

Dusting off the Cobwebs....

....I cannot believe how quickly time has disappeared. I made a post a few weeks before going off on various travels in May including Russia for the Champions league final.

Suddenly it is July and I have not troubled the post count on the blog.

So, what the hell have I been up to then?

I have seen Lenin in State which was the mix of occasion and solemnity that you can imagine, but even so, seeing a man that basically MADE history, silenced the mind.

Apart from the fact that before you go in you are meant to hand in your cameras to a holding place in another building in Red Square. I did not want to be parted from my Sony so hid it in a trouser pocket. However seeing the former Bolshevik leader did lead me to weigh up whether to whip the camera out and take a picture....*

....meanwhile outside Lenin's Mausoleum was undoubtedly one of the strangest contrasts I am ever likely to see. Red Square played host to the Champions Park, the celebration of Champions League football. Watching the history of the competition bought some events I had only read about vividly to life. The highlight for me though was something I had seen. The presentation of Zidane's goal in the final of 2002 against Leverkusen. Inside a tent of air to look like the UEFA globe there were not one, not two, but three cinema style screens. The goal sequence was split in three with each third shifting from left to right across the screens. The rest of the film also used the three screens for various similar effects, but the magic of that goal was exquisitely recreated using the technique.

Since my return I have done some freelance/work experience, including for a sports agency, having the opportunity to meet and film Sir Trevor Brooking, Maria Sharapova and James Toseland. When I was not working on sports I was watching sports, particularly Euro 2008. Spain were worthy winners, at last. With the appointment of Vicente Del Bosque, two time Champions League winning manager of Real Madrid, I believe Spain have their best chance of a World Cup assault. Initially the loss of Aragones worried me, because I think Spain, like Holland need a strong unifying coach at the helm. Del Bosque, if anything, is a better manager than Aragones.

Chelsea thoughts:

I was not a fan of Avram Grant. Yet his performance won my respect and I felt he should have been given at least a full season to prove himself. If it was not for John Terry's miss he would surely still be manager. Talking of which, if the reports of Anelka's words after the match are to be believed, I have nothing but admiration for Terry who probably stepped up when others were falling over stepping back. Drogba did himself no favours getting sent off.

Now Scolari. Pedigree in his native Brazil and in international matches. No arguments. Ballack however has pointed out just how hard the English Premier League is. Expectations for the season:-a repeat of last season would be fantastic but there is scope for big omelette's on some very big faces.

Robinho-yes please. I have always liked Robinho, maybe because in every management sim I own I end up buying him and he is sublime. I would love to see him play live and fit that billing.

Deco-will have to get used to rainy away fixtures up north, which one will turn up-Champions league Porto and Barca Deco or last season's edition? Hopefully the former.

Frank Lampard-still believe he will go like I said last January. I just did not realise how much Inter were obsessed with the Champions League enough to sack a Serie A winning manager. Carlo Ancelotti's previous achievements surely saved him after AC's campaign last season.

I have also sent countless emails on various topics and spent time with friends and family. Now though more articles are ready to be researched and written along with a possible left turn career wise.

*....an idea which was swiftly quashed due to the presence of several armed, stern looking guards. The picture in my head will suffice, of a man looking like he has just gone to sleep meditating on his next piece of political treatise. What Lenin would have thought of Sepp Blatter's comments about footballers and their 'chains' I can imagine. Russian, and very rude, probably. Which would also have been his response to all the t-shirts bearing his name!

2008-05-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

My Player of the Year Awards

Goalkeeper of the Year:

David James.

David James has put in some sterling performances this term which has been an undoubted key element in Portsmouth's fantastic season. A season in which he could yet win an FA Cup Winner's medal. One of his defining moments came in the FA Cup, back in the fifth round at Preston North End. Preston have a penalty and James seems to just fill out the goal before glowering menacingly at the ball. It does the trick and Preston's penalty taker Simon Whalley hits a tame effort to James' right. Easy save. Pompey play on.

Defender of the Year:

Rio Ferdinand.

It pains me to say it, as a Chelsea fan, but Ferdinand has been impressive at the back. I thought it was partly to do with the presence of Vidic but even when Vidic was injured Man United have barely flinched. Ferdinand has matured this season and as long as he puts his petulance, which rose again at the end of the Chelsea game, behind him I will be a grudging admirer if he gets the England captaincy.

Midfielder of the Year:

Cristiano Ronaldo

There can be no arguments here. Forty goals for a midfielder is beyond sublime. Part of the reason why Man U are in the position they are in. His free kick against Portsmouth summed up his incredible season. Skill, desire, goals in abundance.

Striker of the Year:

Fernando Torres:

Again, no argument here. 32 goals in his debut season having moved from his home country and a different kind of football is phenemenonal. One wonders where Liverpool migh have been but for his goals this season. His goal against Arsenal in the white hot atmosphere of an Anfield Champions league night was arguably the pick of the bunch.

Player of the Year:

Fernando Torres

Okay. Now the arguments start! Everyone else has plumped for Cristiano Ronaldo. As a self confessed detester of .... no, not Ronaldo, but hyperbole, I decided to attempt to make a case for Torres. Do not forget, I support Chelsea and am sick to the sight of Liverpool as well. Here goes:

Player of the Year is an individual award in a team sport. As such I believe it is more than just goals which should define the Player of the Year. Indeed, this consideration saw a goalkeeper picked in the actual shortlist. I believe it should be about contribution to the team, work ethic and one or two other considerations.

As mentioned above, imagine Liverpool without Torres. Indeed, Jamie Carragher has pointed put Torres did not actually miss that many games. But it FELT like Torres had. Why? When he was not playing he was missed by Liverpool and thus the media immediately. Now, imagine Man U without Ronaldo. Yes, they would have struggled a bit more admittedly. Not by much though, it is hard to see Man U struggling at the worst of times, but with a team boasting Carrick, Hargreaves, Rooney, Tevez, Giggs, Nani, Andersen, Scholes etc, Man United would have almost certainly been up there. Again compare with Liverpool, of the players at such a high level week, in week out, only Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso could come close. Babel is still too young and the rest are too inconsistent. Voronin anybody?

Which team is likely to afford a player more space? The one where the opposition cannot focus on one or two players. In this light 32 goals in Torres' first season I would suggest compares favourably with Ronaldo's 40. Remember the service Torres is relying on compared to Ronaldo for some of those goals? Mostly one man, Gerard. Ronaldo has a whole outfield ten. Torres has also played two games less. He was unlikely to score four in two but his tally may have been slightly closer still. In addition two of Ronaldo's goals were against an abject West Ham side who, for his first, almost begged him to waltz through and tap it in.

Coming to the next plank of my case, I refer to the fact that Torres is in his first season at a new club, in a new country, playing a different style of football. Ronaldo has been here several seasons already and is following on from a stellar season last year. Torres had everything to prove and everything to lose. As evidence I would call Witness A, Andriy Shevchenko, Witness B, Michael Ballack as well as several others who have not exactly shined in their first season in the Premier League. Some still have yet to rediscover their previous world class form and are contemplating an embarrasing withdrawal. In such a case I would suggest the greater pressure was on Torres to prove himself. Ronaldo, even more so next season, could relax, in the knowledge that regardless of how he plays, he can be forgiven for not reaching such heights every season.

You are, of course, welcome to still support Ronaldo. I just hope that an appreciation of Torres has been restored amongst the swamp of ink spilt over the man from Portugal.

2008-05-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

DLL HELL.....

.....and other matters.

This was meant to be added to a few weeks ago but my computer, which in human years is just about ready for a pension and a bus pass, had a fit and descended into what is known as DLL Hell.

For those that do not know and have not experienced this form of computer illness-less virus or worm but rather akin to electronic alzheimers, I shall explain.

DLL hell is a colloquial term for the complications that ensue when working with dynamic link libraries (DLLs) in Microsoft Windows.

It takes a number of forms, the most common often shows up in a Windows alert window that reports: "A Required DLL File, xxxx, was not found" when users try to run an application.

Well, mine was slightly more serious. My DLL problems started on logging into Windows. Therefore, it was not a case of just removing some rogue applications. The whole registry had to go. Which meant reformatting my C drive. A bit of a pain in the proverbial but it was overcome. After some pianful hours reloading the base OS, Windows, programs.... you get the picture, last week

For those with post Windows 2000 you have little to fear supposedly as the problems for the most part have been fixed but the DLL problems bring me on to

VISA HELL AVERTED.

Since the DLL Hell problem and its repair Chelsea have made it to Moscow. Which posed a problem. With the current political situation between Russia and pretty much everybody else from its western border outwards to say I was concerned would be putting it mildly. Throwing in the wait and cost of trying to get hold of a VISA was also somewhat vexing.

Well, take it from me, the whole army of supporters marching on the Luzhniki stadium has breathed a whole sigh of relief, contributing to our carbon emissions significantly, when the Russians made a pact with UEFA that as long as the fans are in, out, not shaking it all about within 72 hours, the match ticket will be our VISA.

I'll toast some Dovgan to that.

Hopefully not so much that I cannot add some more thoughts on football tomorrow. Luzhniki Stadium Picture Source: Flickr User: Sauri

2008-03-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

For Blu-Ray read MiniDisc

MiniDisc, a Recap.

Sony’s ability to make technologically perfect own goals is remarkable. Sometimes a fickle public boots one of the Japanese giant’s invention marvels into touch. Sony introduced the MiniDisc in 1992 with JVC, Panasonic and others granted licences, a legacy of Betamax’s failure. MiniDisc’s ‘killer application’ saw a CD’s worth of music fit on a disc smaller than a coaster. Except MiniDisc was not portable music’s future. Record company support, including pre-recorded MiniDisc albums, was minimal, strangling MiniDisc at birth. As MiniDisc gurgled its death rattle, MP3, P2P and digital downloads arrived. Sony’s latest Magnum Opus was consigned to tech history.

Blu-Ray.

Only enthusiasts and audio professionals now use MiniDisc, but it does have another purpose: - a warning to Blu-ray. Sony fixed the external support issue with Blu-ray backed by Hollywood big guns Twentieth Century Fox among others. With the emergence of Internet Protocol TV, whopping Terabyte hard drives and movie digital downloads, Blu-Ray’s time may already be borrowed though. One CEO of a hard disk firm has already stated the war is not between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. That was just a battle to see who would be the flag bearer for physical distribution. The war is between that method of audiovisual distribution and electronic downloading. Already Blu-ray is shooting itself in the foot with launch players, apart from PS3, not compatible with new developments such as downloading Internet content. These features will come with machines known as profile 2.0 to be released later this year. This however adds to the confusion, which will put mass consumers off adopting the format. In the meantime with Terabyte drives now available and Microsoft’s plan to launch HDTV and HD movie downloads, the infrastructure is already being built to provide a knockout blow for electronic distribution against physical media. The killer punch will come when the Internet has the power to cope with simultaneous movie downloads, ISP’s get a cut of the profits and therefore remove bandwidth caps and Apple or another company creates eMovies. That day has not come yet but as more and more people get swept up in digital downloading, surely physical is so last century?

As for those who argue against digital downloading: - have an iPod? Throw it out. Buy your CD players back.

Blu-ray is MiniDisc part two. MP3 is a lossy audio format, near CD quality but not the pinnacle. Even so that is a red herring argument as most people do not notice or indeed care about a pinnacle of performance in audio and the same is with visual. Yes, you might be able to see a blade of grass in Run Fatboy Run clearer than you could before, or on 1080p compared to 720p, but the fact is if you are noticing that you are not really watching the film. You are fiddling with your pants at your tech set up and how mass market is that? None. MiniDisc was the same, better quality than MP3 but nobody bit. iTunes = mass market. Digital downloads. The very thing too complicated for the mass market according to some commentators. Right. So Apple has invested a small sum in iTunes and the iPhone for what? Japes? MP3 players fit in your pocket. No moving parts. Connect to your computer. Oh wait what about viruses? Another potential argument against movie downloading, well anybody running scared of viruses with audio downloads. Nope. What I will agree with is the net infrastructure and an iTunes type interface is not there yet. But the hard disks are.

1TB. A year ago unfathomable. So who knows, next year 2TB plus? Take 100 movies round somebody’s house (as if), they will be the same size if not more than a HDD. One last thing on this reliability of HDD versus discs. Discs scratch. How reliable is that? HDD have no moving parts, surely less to go wrong and therefore more reliable than a machine that has optical drives and spinning discs? I have had several viruses on my computer but my data has survived, why? Different drives;- rebooted from disc, wiped the C drive, sure, but my data was on a partition drive or external drive. So come on, who wants to make money out there tech heads? Sort out movie downloading and you can relax in the Cayman Islands.

MiniDisc Credit: Jon Dowland/flickr

Blu-ray Credit: everyone's idle/flickr

Terabyte drive Credit:elliotcable flickr

2008-03-05T02:40:00.000-08:00

A Quantum Leap into Tomorrow’s World

Hands up those who do not use computer technology. Ok, put them down, I can see you took your hands off the keyboard…. or your mouse. Computer technology has grown exponentially. Life without a computer or a device with computer applications is unthinkable. A day without a mobile phone or email can leave a poor person feeling baffled and confused. Some say this is a condition known as MAD COWS (Mobile Distress and Computer Operator Withdrawal Symptoms)…With a suitable phone and digital television set-up you can even record your favourite programs whilst in the car.

This growth may seem alarming. However this is not the case. Computer specifications from RAM storage to hard drive capacity have increased along the same graph that predicts the ability for computer chip makers to double the number of transistors on an integrated circuit board every two years. Commonly known in the computer industry as Moore’s Law this growth in computing ability is actually predictable. Recently though, there have been murmurs that the Law might become a busted flush. As an industry commandment such an event is unthinkable and has led to more extreme ways to keep pace. One method using conventional technology is chip-stacking. Essentially, this moves chip layout from a flat plane into three dimensions and by grouping chips together like tower blocks, reduce the distance information travels between them 1000 times. This method of compacting allows a smaller chip size whilst increasing performance. These 3-D chips are due to be in production this year.

Yet still Silicon Valley tremors with the fear that the Law will run out, either due to the inability to get small enough, or innovations finally being exhausted. In addition to chip-stacking there are five more avenues being explored to keep to the self-fulfilling target of exponential transistor growth. One of these is straying into nanotechnology with the potential endgame identified by Moore himself, as the atomic level in three or four generations.

This is where everything twists and divergent paths emerge. The holy grail of many tech heads is the all-in-one device. Some could point to the iPhone as the grandfather of such a pocket marvel. A phone, computer with wireless access and full office applications, portable entertainment including Digital TV, camera and video recorder all the size of a credit card. The problem with Moore’s Law is it is a theoretical ideal. Translated into the real world most people struggle to keep up, as indeed does software and usage of all those circuit components. That’s why multi function devices are on the rise. They tap into the rest of the components on an integrated circuit board that are usually passive within the system under Moore’s Law.

There is the other path. Which stands, akin to Kilimanjaro, over the current plane of computer physics. Scientists are already working on versions of the behemoth in their labs. Terrifyingly, one of the scientists involved in the experimental builds said that if one of these new computers were operational now, on the Internet, nothing would be safe as the encryption algorithms would be next to useless. They are quantum computers. By harnessing the power of quantum mechanics bits become qubits. Where a bit used to be 1 or 0 a qubit can be 1, 0 or 1/0, unleashing computing power that can solve problems, which take an almost infinite time on current computers, in seconds.

However, those of you suddenly closing your Paypal accounts relax. A practical quantum system is in the time scale of decades away and home quantum computers will be some time after that. So those missing pounds from your account really were spent on buying some late night, alcohol induced, must have off eBay.

The gauntlet has been thrown down as to what to do with all the power possible. 1TB hard disk space is now available so in the future a convergence of quantum technology applications and multifunctional systems…

… leaves a headache, trying to imagine the kind of machine humming away in our pockets or indeed what we would need it for. The advertising campaign could be simple though: Technology beyond our evolutionary capability.

2008-02-06T08:19:00.001-08:00

Formula FAMILY

“Racing, competing, it's in my blood…”

Ayrton Senna’s words were a reflection on his magical ability to dispatch an F1 car around a circuit at a level beyond most of his competitors. Yet the mercurial Brazilian’s words could also reflect another motorsport phenomenon. One that has been bought sharply into focus in F1’s close season with the departure of Ralf Schumacher and the arrival of Nelson Piquet Junior. For while motorsport can be a strain on family life with long trips abroad, racing on circuits in some far flung pit paddock of the globe, racing can also be a family affair. There are some well-known examples such as the aforementioned luminaries Senna, Schumacher and Piquet. Across the ‘pond’ legendary surnames synonymous with speed such as Earnhardt, Andretti and Unser reach out with a V8 guttural roar. Rallying takes a sweeping left-hand swipe back with McRae and Solberg. Here is a presentation of some of the fast and furious families, from disciplines such as F1, Indycars, sportscars, touring cars and NASCAR.

ANDRETTI

Along with the Unser name, Andretti is one of the largest motorsport dynasties. Andretti fortunes are almost completely entwined with Indycars although not solely so. Mario Andretti still outshines the rest of his family, partly by virtue of his successful F1 championship victory in 1978. He remains the last American to win an F1 race. Mario Andretti is the only driver to have won the Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500 and the F1 championship. Juan Pablo Montoya is the only other driver to accomplish the feat. Andretti Senior’s other achievements included four Indycar titles and a race-winning career spanning five decades. Michael Andretti endeavoured to follow in the paternal path and won his sole Indycar title in 1991. Michael failed to win an Indy 500 as part of the ‘Andretti Curse’ and his foray into F1 in 1993 failed to ignite in the way his father’s had. Michael does however have the distinction of being the third highest in the all time Indycar championship car racing victories list (42). Only his illustrious father (52) and A.J.Foyt (67) have more. Michael’s brother Jeff Andretti never recovered from the “Andretti Curse” coined after Mario Andretti’s failure to win more than one Indy 500 in 29 attempts. Jeff, hoping to win in his second Indy 500, crashed violently into a wall after a right rear wheel came off, smashing his legs. He retired two years later. John Andretti, Michael and Jeff’s cousin won only one Indycar victory but his place in history is assured. Along with Mario, Michael, and Jeff, John was part of the first family to have four relatives in the same series and along with Mario and Michael the only family to record a 1,2,3 finish. The feat with John in a Michael (1) and Mario (3) sandwich took place at the Milwaukee Mile in 1991. The Andretti name continues to race with Michael’s Andretti Green Racing team and Michael’s son Marco who races for the team. Marco has one win in two seasons so far. The victory did not come at the Indy 500, with the record for the family being 53 entries and Mario’s sole 1969 victory. The curse lives on.......

UNSER

As steeped in motorsport tradition as the Andretti family the Unser name started racing back in 1926 when Jerry, Louis and Joe Unser competed in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The relationship would continue for seventy years with Robby Unser, an eight-time winner setting an open wheel division record in 1994 that still stands today. Jerry Unser’s son Al Unser won the Indy 500 four times and holds the record for most laps led in the event with 644, as well as picking up three Champcar titles. Al Unser succeeded his brother Bobby Unser as the oldest winner of the 500. Bobby Unser was not completely overshadowed by his younger brother. He won the Indy 500 three times. Bobby’s son, Robby Unser, has moved on from Pikes Peak glory in pursuit of drifting honours in Formula D. Al and Bobby’s brother, also called Jerry was the first to compete at Indianapolis but died in a practice crash before the 1959 Indy 500. Jerry left behind two sons, one of whom Johnny Unser competed in Indycars without victory and is now Champ Car’s race director. Al Unser’s son Al Unser Junior would go on to come close to emulating his father picking up two Indy 500 victories, two Champcar titles and a Daytona 24 hours. Al Unser Jr, has a son, called, wait for it, Al Unser III, who is currently competing in Indycar feeder series Indy Pro.

EARNHARDT

As Andretti/Unser is to American open wheel racing so Earnhardt is to NASCAR. The most prolific of the Earnhardt family, Dale Earnhardt, won seven Winston Cup Series, (now Sprint) and is credited as the only man in NASCAR history to win Rookie of the Year and the following season’s Cup. A Daytona 500 winner, Earnhardt tied Richard Petty in the all time Cup Series Champions list. Dale Earnhardt’s combative style earned him many nicknames including ‘The Intimidator’ ‘The Man in Black’ and ‘Darth Vader’. His aggressive racing garnered him a ‘marmite’ reputation-you either loved him or loathed him but Earnhardt could never be ignored. Tragically Earnhardt died after a crash at turn 4 at Daytona in 2001 with his iconic number three being retired. Such was his reputation an outpouring of shock reverberated throughout the sport and beyond. Dale Earnhardt’s father Ralph Earnhardt won the 1956 Sportsman Championship but never finished higher than 17^th in the major series. The son of Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Junior has yet to win a Sprint Cup championship but has 17 wins and a 3^rd place finish in the series. He continues to race but has left his father’s team Dale Earnhardt Inc. to race for Hendrick Motorsports. Dale Earnhardt Jr’s nephew Jeffrey is currently competing in the Busch Series, following in his father Kerry Earnhardt’s footsteps whose career best finish in the NEXTEL (now sprint) series was 17^th at Talladega

PETTY

Like open wheel racing in America two families more than any other have come to symbolise NASCAR. Dale Earnhardt tied with Richard Petty in terms of Cup Championships but in other respects Petty is Mr NASCAR, with a record 200 race wins and the Daytona 500 seven times. Those were just the highlights of numerous records amassed over a 35 year 1, 184 race career. Richard’s father was put firmly in the shade, despite being no NASCAR no-hoper. In fact, Richard’s father Lee Petty won the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959 and the NASCAR championship three times. Lee Petty and his son are seen as the founder and builder of NASCAR with Lee pioneering the sport and his son’s sterling work off the track paving the way for the multimillion-dollar transformation of a former dirt track sport. Richard Petty’s son Kyle followed the family ‘trade’ but never succeeded in replicating his relatives’ feats finishing a career best 5^th in the Cup series consecutively in 1992 and 1993. Still racing in NASCAR his last win was in 1995. Kyle’s son Adam would have been the next Petty to take up the NASCAR mantle but he died in a catastrophic accident in practice for a Busch series race in 2000. Kyle now races the number 45 in his son’s memory.

PIQUET

The Piquet name is about to be unleashed once again on Formula One with Nelson Piquet Junior piloting R28, Renault’s 2008 challenger. Nelsinho has won the South American Formula 3 championship and become the youngest winner of the British Formula 3 championship two years later in 2004. At 19 years and two months he went on to test for the then BMW partnered Williams team. In 2006 he finished runner up to Lewis Hamilton in his second GP2 season. Quite what will happen between Piquet Jr and Fernando Alonso is a mouth-watering subplot to the forthcoming season. Expect one of them to have some Latin style shenanigans. His famous father put the Piquet name into the record books first time around. Nelson Piquet Senior won the F1 World Championship three times in a 13-year career which coincided with that of other greats such as Nike Lauda, Alain Prost, and Ayrton Senna. He also broke Jackie Stewart’s record of most wins in British Formula 3 before his entry into F1. A bad decision to follow Honda to an ailing Lotus team in 1988 for two seasons might have cost Piquet the chance to add more wins and titles to his tally.

ROSBERG

Unlike the American dynasties European racing families tend to be smaller and more widespread. A case in point is a ‘Back to the Future’ rerun of the 1980’s clash between Piquet and Rosberg. First time around Piquet won 3 to 1 with Keke Rosberg’s sole Championship victory coming in 1982 with consistent drives. Saddled with uncompetitive machinery and retiring after just eight seasons Rosberg admits he left the sport too soon. His son Nico Rosberg won the inaugural GP2 championship before his step up to F1, currently making it 1 to nil in the young Rosberg’s favour compared to the young Piquet. In addition Rosberg stepped straight into an F1 drive and grabbed fastest lap honours in his first race becoming the youngest driver to do so. Piquet Junior meanwhile had to make do with a year testing at Renault.

SENNA

“If you think I'm good, just wait until you see my nephew Bruno." The Senna name could be on its way back to Formula One possibly as early as 2009. Ayrton’s nephew Bruno, of whom Ayrton held in high regard, has signed for last year’s GP2 champion team iSport. A championship win could see the 24-year-old follow Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Timo Glock straight into an F1 seat. A welcome return to the name which departed F1 in such tragic circumstances. His famous uncle won three F1 titles and an army of fans for his ability to transcend his peers by touching the limit and going beyond it. His win at Donington 1993, in which he passed four cars on the opening lap in the wet, enshrined his legend as unrivalled in such conditions. Ayrton was also the pole king. The number of times he cropped up at the end of qualifying and beat what his rivals had considered unbeatable, requires more than the fingers on both hands.

MCRAE

There are so many ways to describe Colin McRae, the man who arguably more than anybody put the World Rally Championship into focus of the wider public. Enigmatic, focused, speed demon…Colin was also a rare man who became the figurehead for the sport, like MotoGP and Rossi and F1 and Schumacher. When Colin’s 555 liveried Impreza exploded into view with his 1995 WRC championship victory Britain had their first Champion for decades. His success paved the way for a series of games bearing his name, further spreading the word of the World Rally Championship. More than any of these things it was his high-octane ability to place the car exactly on the limit and push that envelope harder than anybody else earned him a legion of fans. In that respect, he was a cross discipline ‘brother’ of Ayrton Senna who also had the same ability to transcend what others thought was possible. Colin’s cheeky humour and imperious control of a rally car will be sadly missed. Colin, a two time British Rally Champion was the son of Jimmy McRae, a five time British Rally Champion, who was eventually eclipsed by his son’s success in the WRC. Colin’s brother Alister also won the British Rally Championship in the same year as his brother’s World title. Alister took Colin’s place in the 2007 Race of Champions after his death. With Johnny McRae, Colin’s son also tragically losing his life in the helicopter crash that took Colin, hopes for the McRae name featuring in the WRC in the future are slim.

FITTIPALDI

Emerson Fittipaldi won two F1 titles, an Indycar Title and the Indy 500 twice in a 26-year career. He was the younger brother of Wilson Fittipaldi Junior who never reached the heights of Emerson though they were the first brothers to compete in the same race and score points in the same race. Wilson’s son Christian Fittipaldi similarly failed to light up F1 but has a Daytona 24 hours title to his name.

VILLENEUVE

Gilles Villeneuve was the archetypal racer’s racer. His epic duel with Rene Arnoux at Dijon in 1979 has gone down in the annals of F1 as one of the all time spectacular classics. Villeneuve simply refused to believe when he was beaten. The catastrophic accident at Zolder robbed the sport of one of its most ardent and gifted drivers. Gilles’son Jacques would go on to win the Indianapolis 500, the F1 title, the Indycar title, one of only three drivers to do so. He may yet go on to add the Daytona 500 and NASCAR Cup to his achievements.

SCHUMACHER

This brother duo first caught the attention of the F1 world when the astute Eddie Jordan picked Michael as a replacement for Bertrand Gachot at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix. Michael, despite only cycling around the track beforehand qualified seventh. His dream debut was thwarted by clutch problems on the opening lap. Typically as ever, the German shrugged off the setback to become the first seven times F1 Champion and breaking almost every record in the F1 stats book. Michael also became noted for his ability to push his car around crucial pit windows and his mastery of wet race conditions. His brother Ralf appeared at his brother’s former team Jordan to great expectation in 1996. Ralf was destined to live in the shadow of older brother Michael, winning six races to Michael’s 91.

IN THE PADDOCK

Some more families that could create their own family only teams: Hill, Brabham Nakajima, Busch Toivonen, Solberg, Gronholm, Franchitti, Pilette, Lazier, Ickx, Campos, Rossi, Mansell, Wallace, Rodriguez, Brambilla and Winkelhock.

STEWART

Jackie Stewart won the F1 title 3 times but it was his work as a safety pioneer that also elevated him to elder statesman status. After a crash at Spa, which saw help take twenty-five minutes to remove him from the car, the help being two other drivers, Graham Hill and Robert Bondurant, Jackie had plenty of time to reflect on safety standards. The fact his ambulance got lost on the way to hospital did little to improve his mood. Today many of the safety features he campaigned for, run-off areas, full-face helmets and dedicated medical facilities, would prohibit a race or driver from starting if missing. His elder brother Jimmy took part in the 1953 British Grand Prix.

"It don't mean shit right now... Daddy's won here 10 times."

- Dale Earnhardt Jr on winning his fifth Talladega 2004.

2008-01-03T19:15:00.001-08:00

Perfectly Bittersweet Irony from a Forward

My marathon effort has ended. I set myself the task of making a transfer window blog on Boxing Day and finally it is complete with this last entry: the Forwards. Countless hours of poring over form books, tipster sites, videos.....anybody need a new upcoming scout? Seriously though I hope somebody has enjoyed it and maybe learnt something new, or rediscovered an old gem.

Once again I shall begin with a little story. On my final leg of research I was popping by the FIFA website. I know, UEFA yesterday, now FIFA. Anyway I spotted an interesting headline:

Eto'o demands results over style

Er yes. Quite. The Barcelona forward, aptly enough, has decided winning is sometimes more important than pure football. The Cameroonian international has had this epiphany after finding Barcelona seven points behind league leaders Real Madrid. The maxim is eerily familiar to students of Jose Mourinho and his verbal philosophys. Samuel Eto'o's take on the situation was

"We haven't always done things well. At times we are obsessed with passes and maintaining the ball. But if you do not score, it does not matter what else you have done,"

Mourinho's maxim of course was the succinct "Look, we're not entertaining? I don't care; we win."

Perhaps Eto'o has some insider knowledge.......

Ahem, back to the forwards:

Ewerthon

26 year old Brazilian international currently on loan at VfB Stuttgart who have the option to sign him permanently this January. Real Zaragoza holds the player’s registration but his loan was nothing to do with his ability; Ewerthon scored 12 goals in his first 37 league games for Zaragoza. That left him alongside Fernando Torres in the scoring charts for the 2005/06 season. Ewerthon was simply pushed out as Sergio Garcia hit form; the sublime Pablo Aimar was signed by the club and then along came Oliveira. A return to the Bundesliga would certainly bring back fond memories. Ewerthon spent four seasons at Borussia Dortmund, scoring 47 goals in 119 league games and winning the Bundesliga along the way. However, he might wish to chance his arm in the Premiership and would certainly interest a few clubs. Sunderland are said to be interested but with Jeremie Aliadiere’s stuttering form and injury woes Middlesbrough could be tempted. Portsmouth, Man City and Bolton could also be in the running particularly if the latter sell Anelka.

David Odonkor

Lightning quick German international wing forward who is currently at Real Betis since his £4million pound move from Borussia Dortmund in 2006. He has not had the best of times in La Liga with only 20 appearances due to injuries. However he should be back to his best come the middle of January after an op back in November kept him out for two months. Odonkor, still only 23 is surely too fast for the more technically minded Spanish league. He was once reported as running 100 metres in 10.9 seconds. A move to the Premiership may suit his talents as a flying winger who can cut inside. While the big four might be reluctant to angle for him Everton could certainly add him to the team of youthful attacking effervescence David Moyes is beginning to erect. Odonkor might also interest Manchester City, Newcastle United and Portsmouth. Real Betis would be reluctant to sell and Odonkor might want to finish the season to prove himself in Spain first. The big plus for any interested team though is Betis are down in 18^th in the table and a £6million pound bid could land one a most promising young international.

Njazi Kuqi

The younger brother of Fulham’s Shefki Kuqi, Njazi has some Premiership experience albeit a bad one. Signed by Birmingham in 2005 he left in 2006 after failing to dislodge Mikael Forsell and Emile Heskey. Kuqi is still 24 but his temperament still seems on the immature side, which has led him to be dismissed by Groningen in August 2006. Kuqi currently plays for FC Carl Zeiss Jena in the second Bundesliga but has failed to settle. He would be a cheap addition too as a squad player at a bottom Premiership or top Championship side. Fulham could pair the brothers together. With his brother guiding him and Roy Hodgson, a former Finnish manager, not to mention fellow countryman Antti Niemi, Njazi Kuqi might settle down. The Finnish striker can then show why he was Finland’s under 21 player of the year a mere three years ago.

Maksim Shatskikh

Uzbek international forward who has been voted as one of the top three Asian players in 2005. Shatskikh, besides being a nightmare for commentators to pronounce, scored 27 goals in 35 internationals. He has also scored 87 times in 186 league games (47%) for current club Dynamo Kyiv. That compares fairly well with Kyiv’s most famous export Andriy Shevchenko, who scored 60 times in 117 league games (51%). Shatskikh was ironically the man who replaced Shevchenko when the Ukrainian left for Ac Milan. The 29 year old has also equalled Serhiy Rebrov’s goal scoring record for a season with 22 in the 2002/03 season. The question mark is whether he would move, but at 29 he still has the time to play for several seasons and a chance to play in a top European league might be hard to resist. The 6ft 1.6-inch striker was once coveted by West Brom in 2005 but Uzbekistan’s ranking made a work permit impossible. With Uzbekistan being as high as 45 in December 2006 the Uzbek forward would be eligible this time round for a fee of around £4million. Birmingham, Derby and Sunderland take note.

Giuseppe Sculli.

A 26-year-old Italian on loan at Genoa from Juventus. A former U-21 star he is unlikely to feature for the Juventus first team. However, good positional sense to create space and a powerful header of the ball should see him as a good buy for a promotion chasing Championship outfit. With QPR’s Italian connections they would be in pole position to land Sculli but Crystal Palace and Charlton Athletic could start nosing around.

Future Transfers but unlikely in January.

Dean Ashton

Originally I would not have mentioned the former Crewe and Norwich striker. Recent speculation has suggested that Ashton might be heading out of the Boleyn ground and on to pastures new. The spectre was raised after the West Ham player began to feel restless after coming back from injury and not starting as often as he liked. West Ham’s manager Alan Curbishley has dismissed talk of a rift with the player. Chances are the tension, if any, between club and the 24 year old would be full England international will be smoothed over during this transfer window. The situation will be monitored closely though and if Ashton continues to play cameo roles the vultures might swoop in the summer.

Fernando Cavenaghi

24-year-old Argentine former starlet, scoring 57 goals in 84 league appearances for River Plate. Now at Bordeaux via Spartak Moscow Cavenaghi has scored 6 goals in 18 league games. Cavenaghi can play with both feet, with a good header. He has good positioning sense and a bit of pace but will need to keep an eye on the physical element of the game but certainly a fox in the box player. Cavenaghi also has that ability, like Eduardo for example, to stroke the ball home with finesse. The Argentinean’s next move may well be a big one.

Hugo Almeida

Pacy Portugese powerhouse at 6ft 3, Almeida plays for Werder Bremen. He has scored 7 goals in 12 league matches for Werder and could star at Euro 2008. Yet Almeida is only 23 and like Miroslav Klose may eventually move on to a European giant.

2008-01-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

Hearts and Midfielders

Phil O'Donnell's death has bought the issue of heart safety sharply back into focus, five years after the shock loss of Cameroonian international Marc Vivien Foe. The Motherwell captain's collapse from heart failure at the end of December is also an untimely remider of why Uefa issued a statement back at the beginning of that month. In it, Europe's governing football body declared players at Euro 2008 will have to take mandatory cardiac tests before taking part. This was in response to deaths such as Foe's and it is unfortunate that O'Donnell's name will be added to that roll call. All players entering the game are routinely scanned at 16 but the Professional Footballers' Association has called, like UEFA, for more screening to be done at the national and club level.

Hopefully more cases such as two young Accrington players who have continued playing after post screening operations will be the norm and deaths like Phil O'Donnell's will be fewer, if not prevented all together.

Phil O'Donnell

1972-2007
God needed a Captain. He got the best.

************************************************************

I came across the UEFA statement whilst researching players for my transfer window blog series and intended to write that up with Foe in mind. When I heard the tragic news of Phil O'Donnell's I could not believe that it had happened at first. After I realised it was a heart attack, that was even more disturbing. I hope UEFA and the PFA do succeed in making football safer in this area.

I also therefore dedicate the midfielders blog to Phil O'Donnell as one of the most honest of them all.

The midfielders that might impress this January:

Mika Vayrynen

A Finnish footballer who plays for PSV Eindhoven. The 26 year old can play as a defensive or attacking midfielder and can if needed play on the right. He has been capped 24 times for his country and has been linked with a move to Rangers. Vayrynen most recent attempt at a move was to Derby County under Billy Davies back in August. A £2.2 million transfer fee had been agreed when a calf injury quashed the move. Steve Bruce might sensibly try and resurrect the deal, as Davies would have done. Otherwise he might head for Fulham where his former manager Roy Hodgson has just taken charge.

Steve Sidwell

Former Reading midfield maestro who moved to Chelsea at the beginning of the season. Ostensibly signed as cover for the departures of Michael Essien and Mikel John Obi for African Cup of Nations duty appearances have been slim. The 25 year old seems to have been a casualty of the Mourinho fallout as Avram Grant often leaves him as an unused substitute and only gave him a 45-minute run out against Fulham. Sunderland have expressed an interest and Roy Keane will certainly admire his fighting qualities. As an admirer of Sidwell I hope any move would be a loan deal and only completed on the last day of the transfer window. For his career Sidwell may well take any opportunity to play consistent football.

Rafael Van der Vaart

A long admired talent throughout Europe Van der Vaart has been one of the focal reasons for Hamburg’s challenge for the Bundesliga this season. His move from Ajax for 5.5 million euro in 2005 was a shocker; most people believed he would choose one of the top European clubs. Now speculation is rising again the Dutchman might finally make that move. At just 24 years old he is already a seasoned international with fifty appearances to his name. Hamburg angered Van der Vaart by turning down a £15 million move to Valencia last summer. He had set his heart on a move to Spain. Despite claiming he will stay with Hamburg until the end of the season a January move for a player who has scored 87 goals in 201 games for club and country is likely. Chelsea have been said to have prepared a £20 million bid with Frank Arnesen and Henk Ten Cate having strong links to Rafael’s former club Ajax as player and coach respectively. Another manager who may move for him though is his former Ajax manager Ronald Koeman. Now at Valencia Koeman may decide to resurrect Valencia’s interest as he rebuilds Los Che. As for Van der Vaart himself, he has recently expressed a desire to move to the Stadio delle Alpi. Claudio Ranieri is known to be an admirer of the Dutch player. This could be the transfer saga of January.

Diego Ribas de Cunha (Diego)

One of several Brazilians with the shortened expression of Diego, de Cunha is a midfield magician of attacking flair. He has drawn lazy comparisons with his Argentine namesake and had interest from Barcelona and Real Madrid last season. Tottenham Hotspur however were interested in him as far back as 2003. Diego has gone on to prove their initial enquiry, turned down at the last minute by then club Santos FC was on the money. The 22 year old was the Bundesliga Player of the season for 2006-07 and has won many player of the month awards. Tottenham are looking to swoop for him again although an initial rumoured bid of £18million has been rejected. Diego’s refusal to sign a contract extension beyond 2010 though has raised transfer expectation with Liverpool also looking towards the Brazilian. With 22 goals in 50 games for Werder Bremen it is little wonder he is being linked with one of the top four. With a price tag of £18 million Diego looks likely to end up in hotter climes unless Levy does splash some cash, which he has ruled out thus far.

Johann Vogel

The Swiss international was earning his crust at Real Betis last season but has become a free agent after leaving the club by mutual consent. The 30 year old who got to the semi finals of the champions league with PSV in the 2004/05 season is a versatile defensive midfielder. Vogel’s range of passing and ball holding abilities make him a fantastic addition to any team for balance. At a high profile enough club he could rename his position the Vogel position, taking that honour from Makelele. As a free agent he can join any club he wishes. Having 90 appearances for his country, his international and European experience, add weight to a CV that includes a stint at AC Milan. Everton are the favourites to land the Swiss with most rumours suggesting he is a dead cert to sign. If he does not turn up at Everton, Tottenham might be interested, as he would make a great shield for a reorganised defence and a foil for Diego if Tottenham land the Brazilian.

Rio Antonio Mavuba

A true international from the moment of his birth, Mavuba, his passport says he was “born at sea”. Mavuba is now a French international, having become a citizen in 2004. His father was a player for Zaire at the 1974 World Cup and his abilities as a defensive midfielder have seen him touted as Makelele’s heir apparent for the French team. As a 20 year old he made his debut for Bordeaux and immediately became a fixture in the team before his move to Villareal in the summer. Mavuba, 23, has made six appearances for France since 2004 but only one for Villareal this season. This has prompted Mavuba to get itchy feet, desiring first team football in the run up to Euro 2008. Unsurprisingly Villareal want to hold onto the player, publicly to compete in the UEFA cup, Copa del Rey and Primera Liga. Privately the bean counters in charge of the Yellow Submarine know a good Euro 2008 for Mavuba will see his price rocket. Rio Antonio has been linked with Manchester United and Juventus in the past, but Fiorentina have moved into pole position in trying to sign Mavuba. Everton though might try to sign him as Lee Carsley and Thomas Gravesen are beginning to feel the effects of one too many midfield clashes. Portsmouth too might persuade Mavuba to help them challenge for European places particularly with Papa Bouba Diop and Sulley Muntari leaving for the African Cup of Nations. One problem could be the transfer fee; Villareal paid around £11million for Mavuba, they will want to at least recoup the outlay. Chelsea could always go and buy Makelele’s replacement. Then again they let Makelele’s ‘son’ Lassana Diarra move to Arsenal for peanuts.

Shao Jiayi.

27-year-old Chinese international who plays for Energie Cottbus in the Bundesliga. Jiayi has scored 8 goals in 35 internationals and is regarded as a dead ball specialist. Energie Cottbus are just a place off the bottom of the Bundesliga and Shao might be persuaded to move abroad. The attacking midfielder is a natural left footer and could be a decent squad player for one of the relegation threatened sides, Derby, Sunderland, Wigan Birmingham or Fulham. Alternatively he could move to one of the leading Championship sides for example Watford or Charlton. Jiayi should be available for around £3-5 million.

Stephen Appiah

A Ghanaian international constructive deep midfield player, who currently plays for Fenerbahce. Whilst on loan at Brescia in 2003 he scored 7 times in 31 matches and currently has 15 goals in 65 league matches for Fenerbahce in. Appiah has been capped by his country 53 times with 13 goals and was part of the Ghana side that made it into the second round at the World Cup. He was part of the Juventus team that won the scudetto for the 28^th time. Unfortunately this was later stripped due to the corruption scandal in Italian football. The Ghanaian captain is currently his country’s footballer of the year and has been linked with a move to Juventus. However West Ham, Everton, Arsenal and Portsmouth have all been linked to the 27 year old who would cost around £5-7 million. A knee injury has just been confirmed which means his move will probably be delayed if at all to the summer.

Future moves but unlikely in January.

Frank Lampard

Yes. I know, let’s start with a big one. Wow where does that come from? Well first of all, stranger things have happened in football. Thierry Henry professed his undying love forArsenal. After the Champions League defeat to Barcelona he was pretty adamant he was staying put. Fast-forward a year and Henry was involved in a £16 million move to Barcelona. So Lampard’s protestations that he wants to stay at Chelsea forever may be good intentioned but I’ll believe it when he retires from football still at Chelsea. Lampard’s agent claimed a deal had not been signed last summer because Peter Kenyon had not sat down with them. The same agent said a deal would be signed during that pre-season. The contract still appears to be in the briefcase without F.Lampard on it. At the end of this season Frank Lampard will be entering a phase where Chelsea can no longer be bullish about a transfer fee and could hold the club to high transfer demands. If they break down a host of European clubs could come calling like Barcelona and Juventus. Lampard’s decision to stay depends on two key factors and a third lesser one. Where Mourinho ends up next, how Fabio Capello picks his England team and his last big move; a chance to play in another top European League and prove himself? If Mourinho ends up at Barcelona, Frank Lampard will swiftly follow. If Mourinho ends up at AC Milan, which might be a possibility if AC make a hash of their games in hand, there will be a tug of war with Juventus. If Fabio Capello plumps for the favoured option among pundits-Gerrard no Lampard, Frank will see even less reason to stay. Indeed, it would be an incentive to show he can play abroad and win his place back that way. Next summer he could leave for £8 million. After all Pavel Nedved retires at the end of this season, Frank would be a good replacement.

Christoph Preuß

German defensive midfield player who can also operate in defence Preuß plays for Eintracht Frankfurt. Despite his defensive position he is renowned for a bicycle kick-winning goal against Bayern Munich. The 26 year old would be a good squad player for a team in the middle of the Premier League like Tottenham, Aston Villa, Portsmouth and Everton or a first team man for Wigan, Birmingham, Middlesbrough or Bolton. Preuß would command a relatively small transfer fee of around £1million.

Sergio Raul Torres

A real Boy’s Own story for this Argentinian. After 2 seasons at his hometown club, shrimps Banfield de Mar del Plata, young Raul Torres decided to up sticks and come to England and play professionally. Undeterred by a knock back from Brighton and Hove Albion he played for non-league Basingstoke. Here the then opposition manager John Gorman spotted him in a pre-season friendly against Wycombe Wanderers. He has since played 48 league games scoring two goals. Torres has extended his contract at Wycombe until the end of the season but will be aiming to help them get into League One. The 24 year old will be keen to test himself at the next level and if Wycombe fail to gain promotion might jump on a free to Leyton Orient.

2008-01-02T07:29:00.000-08:00

Sam Needs to roll the Dyce and January defensive options

Big Sam has had the dreaded vote of confidence from his chairman. By now that has become football code for "borrowed time". The problem for Sam is Newcastle are a club in a hurry. A bit like England they have allowed other teams to move quite a way ahead of them but refuse to accept it. When Sam says he needs five years he is probably right.

When was the last time a manager got five years? With the admirable exception of Arsenal most clubs seem to be happy on the trigger. More worryingly for Sam Allardyce though is some of his signings have failed to live up to their billing. Claudio Cacapa is supposed to be a great centre back but at the moment needs time to bed in the Premiership. Joey Barton.....well enough said.

Add to that Sam seems to have failed to adjust to managing a club of Newcastle's size. At Stamford Bridge on saturday he rightly went for the draw at the start. If the linesman had been on point and not in fairy land that's what he would have got. Yet there was a period of about twenty minutes in the second half where I was expecting him to bring on Mark Viduka and maybe Owen as well with orders to push on. Frankly there was a spell where Chelsea looked fairly suspect at the back and a bit more adventure from the manager and Newcastle might have grabbed the lead. Instead he left the Owen substitution to fifteen minutes to go, with a return from injury perhaps sensibly so. However leaving Mark Viduka warming the bench until the 89th minute was nonsensical. Allardyce must grab a result of some sort in tonights game, another loss and he could be on the brink.

Talking of defences here are some defenders that might strengthen back lines around the country.

Nigel De Jong

A 23 year old Dutch defensive midfielder or right wing back. He currently plays for Hamburg SV in the Bundesliga with 43 appearances since his move from Ajax in 2006. He has just the one goal for Hamburg but it was an important one. He scored the winning goal that consigned Bayern to their first defeat in the Allianz Arena in March 2006. His qualities have seen him called up to the Dutch squad, making his debut as a twenty year old against France in a friendly. He has since made 19 appearances for his country. Overlooked for Euro 2004 and a knee injury keeping him out of the World Cup he will surely be one of the stars of Euro 2008. He cost Hamburg SV 1 million Euro and with Hamburg four points off the top of the Bundesliga a move is unlikely. However a move now will probably cost at least £10 million but that price may rocket after the Euros. Clubs such as AC Milan, who need to start replacing their ageing back line, could move for him but De Jong may also interest Chelsea and Manchester United.

Luisao

An imposing 6ft 4in 81kg Brazilian defender who plays in the Portugese SuperLiga for Benfica. He has been admired by some for his aerial defending, others for his ability to read the game and position himself in the right place at the right time. The 26 year old can also crop up with important goals when needed although his 10 goals in 146 games for Benfica suggest Luisao keeps them for very worthy occasions. The central defender has played 22 times for his country with two goals. He has been linked with a move to Juventus in a part swap deal with Tiago. Arsenal reportedly showed an interest in the past with a £9million pound bid but with William Gallas now at the club that seems unlikely. However, Liverpool, Newcastle United and Portsmouth could have interest in Luisao. The main problem for the last two will be the likely asking price around 15 million Euro.

Marco Zoro

Another Benfica player, who is able to play as a central defender or on the right, the difference is Benfica are keener to listen to offers for him. A statement on their website says 24 year old Ivorian Zoro has fallen out of manager Jose Camacho’s plans. A return to Italy is not unlikely but the fact Zoro was at the centre of a race taunt furore from Inter fans whilst at Messina suggests he would prefer a move elsewhere. His wage demands are likely to be fairly high which could leave him open to a move to English football. Newcastle, Sunderland and Derby in the Premiership could all do with defensive cover, although the wage demands might preclude all but Newcastle. Will Mike Ashley let Sam loose in the transfer market after the strange disappointment that is Claudio Cacapa? A fee of around £5 million is likely to be enough to prise him from Benfica after his 1.8 million Euro move from Messina at the beginning of the season. A dark horse contender for his signature however could be QPR, newly minted and with Italian connections.

Igor Mitreski

A 28 year old Macedonian defender from the Bundesliga who runs out for Energie Cottbus. Cottbus are currently 17^th in the Bundesliga and Mitreski may well fancy a move to a mid table Premiership club. The central defender could help cover Portsmouth’s African cup absentees or Bolton to move back up the table. With suitable wage increase and release clauses he might even be persuaded to help shore up Derby and Sunderland’s weak back lines.

Tobias Rau.

A once highly rated Bayern Munich left back who has had bad luck with injuries trying to restart his career at Arminia Bielefeld. The 25 year old defender could be persuaded to pit his wits in the Premiership as his current team are 14^th in a league, which is nowhere near as competitive. He could be a target for Derby, Sunderland or a highflying Championship team for example Charlton. QPR’s bankroll and project might also appeal.

Fabricio Coloccini

Argentinian international defender, winner of the FIFA World Youth Championship and part of the Olympic gold winning Argentine team in 2004, Coloccini is a seasoned professional at the top level. The centre back, who made two appearances at the last World Cup, is still only 25. Currently playing for Deportivo La Coruna in the Primera Liga, he is four years into a six-year deal. Coloccini has been linked with Liverpool in the past and with his team one place above bottom, he will be eager to see European Cup action. Juande Ramos may be tempted to bid to pair him with Ledley King in what would be an impressive centre pairing at Tottenham. A return to Italy and AC Milan where he played one game for the Rossoneri could be in the offing as Paolo Maldini stares retirement down in his farewell season.

Bernard Mendy

Admired as a real French right wing defensive maestro, Bernard Mendy has been at the club he supported from childhood, Paris St Germain for seven years. Mendy spent a year on loan at Bolton Wanderers, whereupon, he so impressed then Bolton manager Sam Allardyce, Big Sam moaned at the lack of funds to buy him. The 26 year old has been linked with a small money move to Liverpool or Celtic. Sam Allardyce could do worse than try and twist Ashley’s arm to land his one time loan star. Due to his contract running out at the end of the season Portsmouth might also try and wheel and deal him in as cover.

Paul Stalteri

Tottenham Hotspur’s right back has slipped down the pecking order with the arrival of Pascal Chimbonda under the Martin Jol regime. With new manager Juande Ramos sure to bring in new blood the 30 year old might find his role as cover eliminated altogether. A former Bundesliga winner and Premiership experience may appeal to clubs lower down the table such as Sunderland, Derby, Wigan and Birmingham. Fulham might however have the best chance if Stalteri decides he wants to remain in London. Otherwise a return to the Bundesliga might appeal maybe in a swap deal with Coloccini.

Future moves to look out for but unlikely in January are:

Gael Givet

A 26 year old centre/left back signed for Marseille this summer from Monaco. Marseille’s faltering form may see the Frenchman move on.

Vincent Kompany.

21 year old Belgian centre in the Bundesliga. Chelsea among others courted him but after dismissing the Mourinho regime as a “football factory” the Belgian joined Hamburg SV in 2006. An integral part of the surprise package SV have become in the Bundesliga. Hamburg however have failed to remain a consistent threat over the years and a similar fall in fortunes could see Kompany seek fresh pastures in Italy or England.

Sebastian Squillaci

French international playing for Lyon since his 2006 move. The 27 year old centre is assured of challenging for domestic honours again. With Lyon’s wonder team broken up over the last two seasons Champions League glory however, despite going forward to the second round, will remain elusive. Further break up of the team could include Squillaci looking for a new challenge.

2007-12-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

Barton Barred and January Ball Gazing Part 1

I was peparing some research into players that should interest the January Transfer market and remind football fans of some others to watch out for in the future. I just happened to flick across the latest football news.

Seems Joey Barton cannot keep himself out of trouble. Nevermind the fact his team are in all sorts of straits. Mr Barton, Esq. is obviously in the wrong sport. Perhaps he should swap with Ricky Hatton. Maybe then Floyd Mayweather would have known what Evander Holyfield felt when Mike Tyson bit his ear off.

Barton once said “It's always nice to be linked with the big boys and always nice to be gazed at from afar and be admired for your football.”

Barton has now shown himself to be a thug, previously on the pitch and at the training ground. His antics have just gone public. He misses two vital games over the packed Christmas/New Year schedule, including one against Chelsea. His "combative spirit" as several of his managers have euphemistically put some of his more over zealous tackles will be missing. When it is most needed. Instead he will be squaring up with the local nick's Mr Big.

Now this may very well come across as sour grapes-seeing as I am not a very well paid footballer such as....Joey Barton. But frankly I hope Newcastle United and the FA do the decent thing. Terminate his contract and give him some sort of ban. The man obviously, despite his constant stream of public piffle, has no idea of how privileged he is. Or the fact he is meant to be a role model. Players who get involved with drugs are given short shrift by some clubs because of this, yet once the drugs take hold there is less control than over somebody's temper. Perhaps Tony Adams should put his arm around Barton and get him to go to Sporting Chance.

Hopefully after a suitably lengthy ban, some help with the issues he seems to have with violence and a brush with losing his mega bucks status, the footballer might re-emerge from the Incredible Hulk Joey Barton seems obsessed with turning into.

Now on to hopefully more heart warming reading, the transfer window is almost upon us and managers will be getting as excited as seven year olds the night before Christmas.

Doing a bit of digging I found some players which might raise interest in January and the next twelve months as well as resurrected some targets which may have been forgotten.

Starting with the goalkeepers:

BIG SHOT STOPPERS:

Roman Weidenfeller:

Actually, it is a shame that Weidenfeller is currently injured otherwise I am sure Arsene Wenger would have liked to use Lehmann in a swap plus cash deal for the German goalkeeper. The irony is rich. Lehmann left Borussia Dortmund after pressure from Weidenfeller forced an argument over who was the true number one. Weidenfeller is also pushing Lehmann in the national team stakes as to the true heir to Oliver Kahn. As it is, Lehmann looks like coming in as cover for Roman Weidenfeller rather than seeing his long time rival being his Emirates replacement. However I have included Weidenfeller because his injury will see him back just in time for the run in and somebody might take the risk. After all, Dortmund are not setting the Bundesliga alight in 10th and a move is surely going to take place, if not now then in the summer. Weidenfeller's pedigree is good with a 78% save percentage, behind a defence which is best described as mainly veteran.

Fabian Carini:

Will this man ever get to the Premiership? Or for that matter get a true first team chance to shine? He has already caught the eye of Arsenal until his wage demands made the Professor think twice and then Manchester United began sniffing around. At Inter, Carini never got a look in with the likes of Toldo and Cesar keeping him out of the side. At the beginning of this season the Uruguayan international left on a free for Real Murcia. Whilst the Spanish side may be looking to have him as a long term replacement for incumbent net custodian Antonio Notaro, Carini surely left for first team football. He has appeared once. Another factor which may help any interested parties is his club. They are currently fifth from bottom in La Liga and are not likely to trouble European competition on a consistent basis. Surely not good enough for an international player? Carini might be a target for Arsenal, although with Almunia and Fabianski as understudy he is more likely to reignite interest at Old Trafford. Carini would be perfect as an intermediate between van der Sar's retirement and Ben Foster's coming of age. Alternatively Tottenham Hotspur might be another destination, particularly with compatriot Gustavo Poyet as Juande Ramos' assistant. However Murcia do have Carini locked into a four year deal and so his calibre will command a transfer fee of at least £7 million which could deter bidders beyond the top four.

Ivan Pelizzoli:

An Italian (oh really?You would never have guessed) goalkeeper who impressed with youthful displays at Atalanta before a disastrous spell with AS Roma. Pelizzoli's spectacular fall from grace has been completed with a 3 million euro move to Lokomotiv Moscow. However, how he ended up at Moscow's third team is still a little hard to believe. With Sven Goran Eriksson still unsure over his fellow Swede Andreas Isaksson and Hart too young, Man City could do worse than pair an ex Serie A manager with an ex Serie A goalkeeper. Reading could be an outside interest, with a desire to find long term cover for Hahnemann with Federici not quite cutting it.

MEDIUM TO LONG SHOTS:

Bruno Fernandes de Souza:

A real outsider and more of a one to watch for the future. A young Brazilian goalkeeper who plays for Flamengo on loan from Atletico Mineiro. He has impressed Flamengo so much he has pushed out once first choice goalkeeper Diego. Helpfully I have managed to find a highlights reel for any prospective scouts to pique their interest:

Bruno Fernandes Das Dores de Souza
Uploaded by UMATLETA

The only problem is he is yet to play for Brazil which could cause problems on the work permit front. Then again he could join the likes of Marcos Senna (Spain) and Deco (Portugal), fellow Brazilians who have played for other countries. In a few years he might be England's new number one!

MISSION IMPOSSIBLES:

Timo Hildebrand:

An unlikely mover as he is seen as Santiago Canizares long term replacement but one to watch out for in the Valencia team and for the German national side. Big money might persuade Valencia to part company.

Luke Steele:

A former Manchester United Trainee like Ben Foster, now at West Bromwich Albion where he is on a season's loan at Coventry. A long term replacement for West Brom or a permanent move to another Championship side? Another prospect to look out for other the next few windows.

Coming soon defenders.

2007-12-19T05:03:00.000-08:00

Big B other.....
r

.......AGAIN!

The Government that is obsessed with having our details on databases should stop watching us and watch what it is doing with our data. The turkeys in the Labour Government have been widely reported to have lost more than 3 million learner driver details. This follows on from the 6,000 driver details in Northern Ireland and the 25 million child benefit data losses.

This goes beyond stand in Lib Dem leader Vince Cable's polite description of Gordon Brown as Mr Bean. Frankly this latest round of nonsense makes that an insult....to Mr Bean. The whole Labour Government are now dressed in stripy red and white hats and glasses as the public can now play Where's Wally in the Cabinet.

More seriously, if Government departments are losing our details so wilfully, what's to stop a potential terrorist slipping through the net with devastating consequences? Why did the Government need to keep records of learner drivers for more than a year? Surely after a year of driving, if no incidents have occurred they have proved they were correctly passed. The driver's details should then be merged to one file at the Driving Standards Agency as that of a qualified driver.

The only explanation to the contrary that springs to mind is that of an Orwellian attempt to have a blow by blow account of ordinary people's lives and for what purpose is that serving?

I am surprised we have not been treated to stories of ministerial papers disappearing from Her Majesty's Stationery Office-no that is not a department I made up. With plans to put more of our health records online, how long before several John Smiths of various habitats become worried they have diseases or illnesses of someone else?

With baited breath the public can only wait and shake its head at the farce this government has become. No wonder Tony Blair disappeared so quickly, like a fox in the bushes. David Cameron is certainly not losing any sleep over this. Any more Brown Government balls ups and the public will surely, come election time, tell Labour to GET LOST!

Please note, this post is intended as a semi humourous take on political events and as such in no way suggests members of the cabinet are actually Wally or indeed wallies.

2007-11-26T07:29:00.000-08:00

TOYOTA ADD GLOCK TO THEIR ARSENAL

Toyota have confirmed that Timo Glock, current GP2 champion will drive for them next season. He replaces Ralf Schumacher as the team's resident German pilot. There is no doubting Glock's ability to race an F1 car with his BMW testing experience and previous race experience with Jordan. What is a concern is whether Toyota will finally stabilise themselves and start aiming their sights at the opposition rather than themselves and build a car suitable for Glock.

The test at Jerez between the 4th and 6th of December will hopefully give encouraging signs of Toyota's move up the performance ladder but in the meantime here is a quick profile of GP2's latest graduate:

Glock is a charming, humorous 25-year-old German from near Frankfurt. Away from the madding crowd of a race weekend he likes to meet up with his friends at home for drinks at the Nacht café. Glock and his friends also visit the local kart track. This is part of his need to practice as well as have fun, as he cannot totally distance his life from racing. There is the fitness work that is crucial to a modern race driver’s competitive ability, the workouts and bike riding. In this sense motor sport is like football in that twenty to thirty years ago fitness was less highly managed than today.

The German likes Nicolas Cage films and finds Tim Allen amusing-when he has time to watch them that is. He also mentioned he liked John Travolta’s films before going on to say one of his favourite films was Wild Hogs, starring both Allen and Travolta. How much that has to do with the motorbikes he didn’t say although there were a few chuckles as he tried to recall the title, which was released as Born to be Wild in Germany. The episode was one of several where the atmosphere of bonhomie around Glock was generated. Another occurred as he tried to explain his favourite drink. At this point his relationship with his teammate also came across as that of relaxed partners. Timo asked Andreas Zuber how best to describe his choice in English. A brief consideration before the answer came; “Apple juice with soda.” Like most of the drivers in the GP2 paddock Timo Glock is a big fan of pasta, which he might partner with white wine in the evening.

Apart from his friends, his family and his manager of seven years are important to him and he likes to play tennis as well as go karting. His favourite tennis players to watch are Roger Federer because he is clever and Rafael Nadal because he is impressive and aggressive. Timo is a keen sports fan that watches football with his favourite team being a local choice, Frankfurt. He enjoys basketball, supporting the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA who have a German player in their midst, Dirk Nowitzki. Timo also follows his own branch of sport, particularly NASCAR. His childhood racing heroes were Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher; he says, “Both were special, successful and bloody quick. Both made it to F1 the hard way without money, Michael especially.”

An impish grin and an answer that will resonate with school leavers around the world followed when giving his favourite childhood memory, “When I left school.” His favourite music depends, at home whatever is on the radio, MTV, “hip-hop to house” but again Timo could not help but refer to his career. Before a race he listens to some rock, like AC/DC. Talking of races, he thinks race one of Magny-Cours 2007 was one of his strangest while Hockenheim is special to him due to the good races he has there. He still remembers the GP2 race last year when he overtook Jose Maria Lopez on the last lap to win. If Hockenheim is one of his charmed tracks, the German may not miss Magny-Cours after his 2007 weekend. Certainly he doesn’t rate the hotels placing the Première Classe as the worst hotel in the world he has visited. Again, a pause, a chuckle and a half musing, half concerned “Can I say?” There was less hesitation on the best: - the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

2007-11-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

Foreigners: What have they ever done for us?

Apart from raise the level of the ability of the players we have (more on that later), raise the profile of the Premiership by enticing some of the world's best talent to the League-like Ronaldo and Tevez, as well as overhauling training methods and practices, for example Arsene Wenger's crackdown on the beer and burger mentality at Arsenal. I'd consider all of these improvements.

So let us re-examine the foreign quota will win us the Euros/World Cup argument. First off it will not. Secondly it cannot. Thirdly, do not.

FOREIGN PLAYERS A BLESSING

Foreign players have been a blessing to this country. Their professionalism on the whole(like all groups there are some exceptions) has helped raise the level of fitness and dedication to training in the League. I cannot speak in depth for all clubs but Arsenal are one noted example and Chelsea would be another. England's current captian, albeit injured is John Terry. He is a fantastic defender and would undoubtedly have become a fine footballer regardless. However it is a well received and acknowledged wisdom around Stamford Bridge and by Terry himself that polish to his diamond toughness was supplied by his one on one after training sessions with the Italian maestro Gianfranco Zola. Zola helped him practise defending against wing wizards and twinkle toes across the land and the world. His positional awareness and almost inch perfect tackling were perfected with foreign help.

Another case study is that of Michael Duberry, a good footballer and fantastic compared to the man on the street certainly, but he is my salutory warning to those who would jump on the foreign quota band wagon. Mr Duberry left Chelsea after claims the influx of foreigners drove him out. He rocked up at Leeds where he played 54 times and four sub appearances in six years, his presence mostly confined to the bench. This was the Leeds of Alan Smith, Lee Bowyer, Jonathan Woodgate and a certain Rio Ferdinand. The simple fact is that when compared to the quality of the players coming in, Duberry did not make the grade.

However, Terry was rising through the youth team at the same time Duberry had his fit of pique and ended up taking over from Marcel Desailly (A foreigner) and partnering William Gallas followed by Ricardo Carvalho in defence (both foreigners). Rio Ferdinand partners a foreigner at Man United. Neither have been dropped to make way for another foreigner. Steven Gerrard, despite some bizarre apparent attempts to drop him by his manager, has preven himself indispensable to Liverpool....although Rafa's inept attempt to prove Liverpool can live without Gerrard may have prompted the Liverpool midfielder's comments this week. Joe Cole, Micah Richards, dare I say Frank Lampard, Shaun Wright-Philips, Michael Owen all present playing football. The next generation is appearing, Walcott of Arsenal, Sinclair from Chelsea, Rooney is still only 23, enough for three World Cups! He is one of the pivotal figures at Manchester United in a team with several foreign superstars. The link is clear, if English players are as good or better than the foreigners available they play, if not they don't.

QUOTA INCREASES QUANTITY NOT QUALITY

Surely therefore a quota would make the England team worse by simply increasing the number of good players whilst reducing the ability of good young players to become GREAT players. Test them out at international level and the shortcomings would be even more painful than now. Besides young English players are in demand and potential superstars bought for money over the odds compared to their European counterparts, for example Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale. Both double figure million pound deals. Cesc Fabregas' transfer fee was under ten million pounds. There may be a case to answer for a quota on transfer fees but it does not support the anti foreigner junta.

FATAL FLAW IN ANTI-FOREIGN PLAYER FURY.

The central premise of this preposterous argument is in any case a non sequitur. On the basis that the more foreigners we have in the League the worse our national side becomes there is one stark and painful question in answer to that assumption. Why do we only have one World Cup? From 1966? Won at home. Foreigners did not really start arriving for another twenty odd years. Plenty of time for another international trophy you would think. And then thirty years after our one big international tournament victory, as players such as Zola, Vialli, Bergkamp et al begin to arrive in force England have a splendid Euro 96 at home where our enemy, penalties(and the Germans) foil us again. So here's an idea, England should enter only those international tournaments at home? We obviously don't travel well, no? Perhaps instead of booting out the foreign players we should skim them for travel tips?

No, the argument stinks. It stinks of the same attitude that caused us to get knocked out in our first World Cup foray in 1950 1-0 to the USA. The same attitude that got us thumped home and away by Ferenc Puskas magnificent Magyars; We are England and if you lot would only let us get on with it we'd cream the lot of you. Tosh! Drivel!

On that basis Spain would have won a major international tournament by now, with only 38% of its players being foreign to Spain compared to 59% foreign players in the Premiership. On that basis Italy, the current World Champions are a shoe in for the Euro Championships with only 30% foreign players in their league. No, wait, they haven't even definitely qualified yet, c'est le difference avec les Bleus (34% of French league players are foreign).

BLOOD SWEAT TEARS NOT EXCUSES

It's an excuse. If we want to do anything with the foreign players it is but learn. Adapt to our individual national footballing characteristics certainly but add preparation, dedication and from our national manager to sometimes make a brave call in the heat of the moment to the mix. To drop the ageing superstar or to call up a promising but untested youngster. A manager who looks beyond the big clubs, especially the top four, for his players.

We have the players at our disposal today. Any national squad which includes the likes of Ferdinand, Terry, both Coles, Lampard, Hargreaves, Richards, Wright-Philips, Rooney and that is for starters cannot argue we have had the team affected by foreigners. What we lack is the old British spirit, to go down fighting and a manager willing to make the big calls. Look back at Ince in World Cup 98 qualification, bleeding for the cause. Gazza's tears at missing the World Cup final in 1990 but playing on in one of his best games for his country. Sir Alf Ramsey to Hurst after yet another hat trick; Hurst"see you next game" Ramsey "Perhaps". Ramsey knew no player was sacrosanct.

Finally take yet another lesson from those 'blasted' foreigners. The Greeks. Euro 2004. Unfancied, untipped. They only went and won the bloody thing. How? They played as a team, not as players. So if Gerrard and anyone else wants to open their mouths and whinge about foreign players, let's see if this foreign quota will work. Let's take those less fancied England players like Sidwell, Duberry, Andy Johnson, Green, Woodgate, King, Glen Johnson, Richardson, Defoe, Parker, and build a whole new squad out of the so called players we seem to be lacking for strength in depth . Throw in some Championship players for good measure. After all some of them will become top four club players if they are not already, to fill the gaps left by the quota so we better blood them sooner rather than later. Bring to the boil by letting them know this is their chance to shine as a team, put their illustrious England compatriots to shame and see how we get on. After all if the anti-foreigners are right, which they are not, how can we do any worse?

2007-10-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

Ho Hum....

.....Ok I am not going to make any predictions of Lewis' championship fortunes. Instead I shall concentrate on a new member of the grid for Brazil. In a feature I wrote for the Bridgestone e-Reporter contest I suggested that GP2 drivers were queuing up for F1 drives and elder F1 drivers should watch their backs.

I did not imagine that my words were anywhere near close to being prophetic but 2007's GP2 Rookie of the year Kazuki Nakajima has sprung from nowhere to confirm that the GP2 orchestra of speed is in accelerado by replacing F1's Styrian harmonica Alex Wurz at Williams for the final round in Brazil. While Williams have said this is not an evaluation for a 2008 seat the experience will be invaluable for Nakajima.

With the personality that won him the GP2 Drivers personality of the year award added to his electrifying pace-winning him many fastest lap points, he has the perfect opportunity to impress and fulfil his ambition of an F1 seat as early as 2008. Certainly a good qualifying and race pace will calm worries about his consistency and propensity for mistakes. His second half season performance for DAMS suggests he has already begun to challenge such criticism and will add an interesting sub plot to this extraordinary season's final act.

However, the chance has come from Alex Wurz's retirement and without being privy to the exact reasoning behind the early retirement (one race before season's end) this is not yet a full blooded GP2 young gun cull of the big holster slingers of the F1 badlands just yet.

But somewhere, maybe just beyond the last Bridgestone Potenza shod wheel turning in anger through Juncao the well built lady is beginning to wet her tonsils and run through the octaves, just maybe......

2007-10-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

LEWIS: A MAN OF ALL ROOKIE SEASONS.

At the start of the season I wondered if Lewis could define his season with a win on his debut but instead he has surpassed everyone's wildest expectations. Short of a catastrophic event Lewis is surely going to be a rookie World Champion and that result could (fingers crossed) be confirmed by tomorrow morning around 9ish. That is remarkable, regardless of which team he drives for he still had to get the car home. Let us not forget Jacques Villeneuve had a similar opportunity in a similarly dominant car and failed to do so.

GP2 connection

Lewis also graduated from the GP2 series as Champion which has solidly proven its Ronseal abilities as a proving ground for would be F1 drivers. Thus dismissing his feat purely because of the car he has under him is to succumb to the most British of instincts, love the underdog, hate the conquering hero. Yes Kovaleinen and Rosberg are fellow GP2 graduates and are not in the championship frame as their cars are not at the standard of the Mclaren. They have though replicated what Hamilton has done; matched their teammates with Rosberg and Kovaleinen beating theirs more often than not. Hamilton's challenge was arguably greater again. His teammate is double World Champion Fernando Alonso. The fact Hamilton got under his skin early in the season and has stayed at the top of the F1 pile should give unqualified indication of his abilities. Another telling factor is that yes, he has had Mclaren backing all through his career.

Ron Vs Red Bull

Ron Dennis though is not some old romantic. He is a phenomenally successful team boss who has seen Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna to world titles. If Lewis did not keep delivering he would have ended up lost in the wilderness between karting and F1 that swallows many drivers. Compare the Hamilton journey with the Red Bull Programme. They have had almost 30 drivers rise through their Junior ranks and hardly any have reached F1 let alone caught the eye spectacularly when they have arrived. The most promising star at the Red Bull stable at the moment is Sebastian Vettel but he also received help from BMW motorsport leaving Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi as this season's Red Bull F1 graduates. Speed has gone replaced by the aforementioned Vettel while Liuzzi is to be replaced by non Red Bull man Sebastian Bourdais.

The Real Deal

So if Lewis does take the title tomorrow do not let the Spy Scandal, Hungary Qualifying or grumbles about him being parachuted into the best team make the bubbles on the Champagne go flat. Lewis is one of the best F1 drivers on the grid and his performances have shown that. Whether he is the best only time and consistency will show that but this season of 'miracles' certainly has not done his reputation any harm at all.

2007-09-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

No Way Jose!

Say it ain't so! Rubbing the sleep from my eyes over BBC breakfast I thought I had been transported to April Fool's day, surely some mistake. Hit the teletext button. Nope in blue and black, no mistake. Chelsea's MOST successful manager, stress that fact, gone. Let there be no doubt and no amnesia setting in just because of his last three results.

A QUICK HISTORY LESSON

Chelsea have only ever won the top league three times. Twice under Mourinho. No other manager in Chelsea's history has done this.

Chelsea won every domestic trophy under Mourinho and came close to the Champions League final twice in his three and a bit seasons. Only Claudio Ranieri his predecessor got to a semifinal and only the once.

Jose Mourinho has not lost a home game for FIVE seasons. There cannot be too many managers who can boast that achievement. In fact his record over five years including at Chelsea is:

Played 305 won 211 lost 35 drawn 59 winning percentage: 69.18%

which meant along the way breaking Liverpool's unbeaten home record. Even when Mourinho does not win trophies he picks up achievements.

IT'S THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE STUPID!

Let there be no doubt why Mourinho has left this morning. Nothing to do with Premiership success or lack of. He has won two titles in three seasons which compares nicely to his contemporaries, Wenger who has three but has been allowed to get on with the job-11 years at the helm and a new contract signed. It is unknown but likely that Mourinho would have garnered another league title in the next 8 seasons. Rafa Benitez has yet to win the title but has a Champions league to swap. Then of course the unarguable managerial legend of Sir Alex. 9 titles but he has had 20 years to harvest them. And only one in Mourinho's era at Chelsea. All three have a similar win percentage to Mourinho, perhaps even slightly less.

DACHSHUNDS

So yes Chelsea have trotted out like dachshunds but he was not sacked after defeat to Aston Villa or even the draw at home to Blackburn Rovers. Besides, one goal in the Blackburn game and Chelsea would have been alongside Arsenal at the top of the table. Hardly the need for the Chelsea Duma to crackdown on it's sports minister.

No. Mourinho has gone because Abramovich wants the biggest prize in world club football. The Premiership might be harder to win. 38 games of consistency versus the Casiono Royale of knockout competitions where one bad decision, one mistake can leave you out in the cold. But the Champions league glitters the most. As a Russian billionaire it is the one Abramovich identifies with most strongly. The final this season is in Moscow. His home capital. For his team, which he has funded to Bolshoi Theatre fountain levels, not to be there would be a massive blow to his pride. And the Rosenborg draw at home threatened to do precisely that.

STYLE OVER SUCCESS?

Abramovich also wants to stuff himself with Pashka. He wants to win and win in style. Both would be lovely. There were time last season when a bit of Ronseal running down a fence would have seemed more interesting than Chelsea. But sometimes the two don't go together. Arsenal for example play fantastic football but it is only this season with some rediscovered steel in their armoury they look on course to pick up a trophy. Ranieri built a team with lovely flowing football at Chelsea but won nothing, and for all Gullit's sexy football he only collected the FA cup. The major trophies require times when the win is more important than the manner and Mourinho understood that. No disrespect to Hull City, but when Chelsea visit I don't expect them to sacrifice a chance of victory by leaving their millionaire opponents room to maneuvre simply so there will be stylish football. However good Hull are, they know that would be naive.

AVRAM? WHO THE IS AVRAM?

So who is the wonder man that will fill that managerial coat left by Mourinho? Avram Grant. Who the Telegraph describe as a popular charming man. Well in that case he must be better than Mourinho, who was sometimes arrogant and disrespectful. Mourinho's ruthlessness and arrogance best summed up by his own words: Look, we're not entertaining? I don't care; we win.

Excuse me but Wenger is not always mr sweetness and Kantian enlightenment. On arriving at Arsenal he said he attempted to watch a Tottenham game and fell asleep. Mourinho livened up the weekend with his quotes, winding up opposition fans and giving others something to chuckle about. Lift the veil of black humour and sharp tongue and you had a footballing brain that allowed him to speak his mind.

While Avram Grant has won the Israeli league four times he has not exactly set Europe alight and despite not losing a game in 2006 World Cup qualification failed to squeeze out Switzerland. Look back at Mourinho's record on checking in at Дом Chelsea again. Portugese League winner and Champions league medal still reflecting the Gelsenkirchen floodlights. Grant may well be a fine footballing genius but he is hardly in the same bracket yet. At the age of 52 he is also hardly the man to create a Ferguson style dynasty (Mourinho is 44).

MOSCOW OR BUST?

This is one hell of a gamble by Abramovich and his board. When the dust settles under a Russian sky in Moscow after the Champions League final we will find out if it has paid of and his dream becomes reality. Otherwise my sleepy eyes will not have awaken from the nightmare of the sum of my fears-Abramovich has set sail on his new yacht: SW6 the trophybreaker and from there its anyone's guess which port he will make.

2007-07-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

Two thoughts:

First-a moan. It seems that cold calling has entered the twenty first century. I was interrupted in my viewing of F1 Qualifying by a phone call. I picked the phone up, said Hello, Hello, and then a recorded message began trying to give me free calls on my home telephone.

CLICK!

Off goes the phone but for goodness sake I cannot believe I got cold called by a blooming answer machine.
It is bad enough ringing up a company and having to go through the automation service without having automated cold calls!
It is all very T3

Secondly:

Talking of unstoppable forces -Lewis grabs pole for tomorrow's British GP.
On his last lap.
He was behind teammate Alonso and the two Ferrari's whole session. Then he slips in a stellar lap like that. I don't want to add to the hype but oh well, that ability to grab pole at the death of a quali session reminds me of Ayrton Senna.

As to the race tomorrow will we see another Alonso mistake at the start trying to prove a point? He certainly does not look happy in the post quali press conference turning away as Hamilton talks about the fantastic support he is receiving.
Other commentators seem to think the pressure will be on Hamilton. I disagree. Hamilton has wanted to drive for F1 and McLaren all his life, now he is there he is in his element. Everything else is a bonus. He has the speed, his old boss at ART in GP2 Frederic Vasseur confirmed that. He has the support and he is doing well, and that just adds confidence in a positive feedback loop.

For me the pressure is Alonso's. HE is the double World Champion.

HE is 14 points behind his teammate who is a rookie.

And after the qualifying lap like Hamilton's he must be thinking what do I have to do to beat this guy? For a double world champion used to winning, mostly easily, to be on the limit and know it's still not quite enough, is bad enough. Against your teammate in his first season. Well, that is a bitter pill to swallow. Psychologically that is pressure.

2007-07-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

Good old Wistful is back.

Reloaded.

Sometimes we all go through periods where something knocks us off balance and we need to withdraw, regroup, recover.

A chrysalis of human design as it were.

To re-emerge stronger, fitter, healthier, more productive.

Am I there yet, not sure. But I do know that going to France, even though I was sort of working reawakened a part of myself I had closed off for a while, I had been on autopilot it seems.

Well now I feel refreshed, renewed, ready for the next challenge.

Time to start blogging again.

2007-03-17T03:25:00.000-07:00

And its go go go........

........the new formula one season has revved its engines and the starting grid has already been decided. The season, the first without the presence of seven time world champion Michael Schumacher promises to be an intriguing one. Will Fernando pull off a hat trick despite changing teams? He has a good chance of winning tomorrows race IF Mclaren dont have their so far perennial early season gremlins as he starts on the front row.
Talking of gremlins Ferrari seem to have found some which has put one of my would be title contenders in a difficult position for tomorrow. Felipe Massa as the incumbent driver for the Scuderia must start from 16th after gearbox problems. This leaves the way open for the title race most people were expecting- not exactly dousing the criticism the sport is boring-with Kimi Raikkonen on pole.So Kimi Vs Alonso then.......

...........I hope not. Well not just those two anyway else the battle for third place will have to captivate the unknown factor. And there is lots to lock your eyes on. Britain's Lewis Hamilton starts fourth in a Mclaren and has been on a par with his more illustrious teammate all winter. Unlike Ferrari past, Mclaren has always allowed its drivers to race each other which could leave the door open for Lewis Hamilton to achieve something not even Michael Schumacher recorded: a debut victory. The only person to collect this result to date was Giancarlo Baghetti - 46 years ago.

Heikki Kovaleinen was up for the same feat but his grid position of thirteenth leaves him with it all to do with a Renault which looks likely to be less dominant than previous seasons. A car issue or did Alonso push the previous versions beyond the limit a la Schumacher?

Sneaking up the inside line are BMW Sauber with arguably the rookie of last season Robert Kubica in the team. The speed has been evident in winter testing but like Mclaren question marks abound about reliability. However I do expect to hear the Pole is on pole at some point this season!

As for Honda, they have gone "green" but are relying on the power of dreams once more as the early season shakedown of the car leaves them a disappointing 14th (Jenson) and 17th on the grid. Indeed the team from Brackley have egg on their faces this morning as their customer team Super Aguri out qualified them-Britain's Anthony Davidson lining up 11th on the grid and recording a time at one stage nine tenths off pole! A solid race with some retirements possible could see Davidson earn points on his debut too.

The only consolation for Jenson Button, Britain's once great hope to be world champion after Damon Hill, is he is not the last of the Brits! That dubious honour falls to former Aussie GP winner David Coulthard in the Adrian newey designed RB3. To be fair to DC he encountered some dirt on the track on the final corner of the first session ruining his weekend. Mark Webber in the sister car lines up seventh and will be hoping for a podium in his own backyard.

As for the Championship? One race, particularly the opener with teams still unsure of one or two aspects of their cars, does not a title win -although the winner often becomes champion. A more rounded view is likely to come at the end of the fly away part of the season in May.

I am still routing for the man from Sao Paulo-if Ross Brawn had been around I'd have even more confidence as he would have created some off the cuff strategy to bring him into contention in the latter stages.

The season is currently on five lights...........................

2007-03-08T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well they think its all over......

.......it is now. Sort of! okay after the cliched opening allow me to explain. Yesterday Neil, Kate,(fellow journalists) and I went to film a uni football match for a bulletin we are producing tomorrow. And now I know just how hard a sports cameraman has to work to get decent shots of the action! How did I do? Well lets just say my DV cam is no match for the real thing-they have a proper hand tripod I just had my hand! And well, I may have missed a goal and the lead up to another but for a first attempt I'm sure it was ok!

But the match was a thriller with a 5-4 scoreline and the uni team are through to a cup final so the day ended well.

Tomorrow the edit begins!

2007-02-23T03:21:00.000-08:00

Crystal musings.....

.....okay I havent blogged for a while but decided to respond to Sir Alex Ferguson's comments that his team and the premiership title race is in "knockdown". In other words games are running out for Chelsea.

Looking at the run in for both teams one would have to agree. For Chelsea to win the League from here assumes the following:

Chelsea do not come unstuck against teams outside the top four: like Portsmouth away in their next premiership match, a team that, although falling down the table after early season promise, is well organised with passionate home support. Bolton are in the mix for both teams as are the relegation threatened sides fighting tooth and nail for their own title-premiership status potential banana skins for both sides. Conversely Man U may need to slip up against these sides.

Chelsea will also have to beat Man U at home to have a chance of winning the title-its where Mourinho himself claims three of the current six point gap will come from. But with the title at stake and the comparative goalscoring form of both teams those three points are not banked-even though Chelsea are unbeaten at home for many a full time whistle a draw could be on the cards-priceless for the current league leaders.

Then there is Chelsea's visit to the Emirates stadium where Arsenal are so far unbeaten.

Many Chelsea fans are looking at Liverpool to do to Man U what they did to the Blues earlier in the season. But if that match is to count on the final day of the season, under the assumption both teams know the importance of not losing to any other opposition, the north london visit is the holders equivalent and a win is a must else the three points "gained" if at all after a Liverpool victory would revert to a two or even three point deficit.

But that only solves one headache for the would be hat trick champions. There is also a 16 goal difference gap between the teams in the Red Devils favour. If all the above does transpire how Chelsea need to-a victory over both top four reds from manchester and london and Liverpool supply a favour at Anfield the points gap will be closed and the goal difference may shrink across those fixtures.

But in the intervening fixtures Chelsea need to apply a new tactic to one Mourinho, great manager that he is, has so far been unwilling to employ.

Mourinho is happy getting the job done and seeing it through. Winning 1-0 and then controlling the game at 1-0 is winning.

But to bring the goal difference back to a title winning position will entail smashing a few teams along the way like Man U have so far this season. This means keeping pressure on a team 1 or 2 nil down to get a third or a fourth.

Much as it may seem like after the fact predicting I do hope my thoughts after Man U's thumping of Fulham at the beginning of the season do not come back to haunt me: Man U to win the league on goal difference.

2007-02-09T12:41:00.000-08:00

The week's roundup

whew well the week has flown by and I have enjoyed it immensely.

Wednesday I went on another police day in Stanwell got some audio went home and edited it on my computer with sound forge and it came out really well.

Got up early thursday and despite the snow made it in time to touch up the cues so I hit the day hard having got four pieces from the wednesday gig. This was swifly followed by ringing around trying to get MP's and various other people for interviews. Did a telephone interview. Done a few now.

Cut it and got some cues for the bulletin good stuff.

And I must have written at least seven copy stories.

Today was just hectic. The phone literally didnt stop ringing. I had Four phone interviews which I manged to get three cuts for one with cues that have aired. Two cuts for another that has aired with cues and half cut another one. The other is saved for editing by the team.

also wrote some copy stories and fielded various calls.

But all in all I have enjoyed it the staff are great and I am definitely looking forward to maybe working with the team again in the future if possible!

It was a blast.

Roll on TV.

2007-02-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

Whew! What a blinding start to the week!

Well I have not had time to blog yet been busy.

But the second week is certainly nice and jam packed full of stuff what with writing I think ten copy stories maybe 12 in two days, editing several interviews I have done, and various other things I have had to do.

But it has been enjoyable with probably the highlight so far being an interview I did with one of the scientists involved in the Flores island fossil debate-its science ok leave me alone! :-) now if only I had done a hard science degree instead of political science.......

The staff and atmosphere are great and now when doing copy stories I am constantly thinking what would Rod, my editor say about this piece.

Anyway I have another police story to do tomorrow which should be good!

more stories later! :)

2007-02-02T14:24:00.000-08:00

End of week report........

..........and I have been helping police with their enquiries........

Well not quite. Unlike the PM I have no peerage scandal to worry about. But I was sent to cover a police initiative to curb antisocial behaviour in Epsom. Wrote the cues and got the cuts from several interviews I did. Hopefully they will be aired early next week.

A piece I wrote earlier in the week and got a cut about elderly healthcare provision online was aired early this morning after a touch up on the writing (not too much just made it tighter-I know I am loose :-) ) by senior Journalist Martin Fletcher.

Hopefully get that from the archive as well as the police stuff before I leave.

Also been reading planning committee agendas-at first I was worried I would never finish it as it was very thick but on closer inspection it was mostly maps of the applications.

and the staple diet of copy stories......

.......so all sorts of fun.

Oh and I have another week, where I am told more outside missions and bulletin practice awaits.

Cannot wait.

And I mean that!

2007-01-31T05:31:00.000-08:00

Midweek report....

....well so far today I have written three copy stories, helped research some public civic matters which I cannot go into too much just yet....listen to Jackie to hear more and generally keeping myself busy.

The atmosphere is nice and the editor keeps me busy which is good but hope to get my voice on something at some stage just gotta keep patient.

Equipment issues are non existent quite comfortable was nice to have a big sign on a mic for once maybe Mike should consider making a mythical Harrow FM one for students to use..........

Anyway thats it for today

2007-01-30T10:42:00.000-08:00

And another one bites the dust......

.......so another day at Radio Jackie and what fun it was.

Went to a launch nothing celeb driven except local dignitaries but lots of fun and for a worthy cause in healthcare.

Got a cut and hopefully my cue and cut will be used in the near future.

Also wrote some more copy stories and practised bulletins.

Same old problem I seem to forget I have a diaphragm.

Well thats all for now

more news tomorrow!

2007-01-29T10:07:00.000-08:00

Okay......

.......it was time to roll today.

My first day of work experience and it was fun!

Iended up making coffee and tea....................but only twice and was part of the general office atmosphere!

Which at Radio Jackie is lovely!

The Editor is great and so far so good!

I wrote two copy stories which may be used at some point then again maybe not but practice practice.

Hey Mike I read the headlines and a Bulletin!

Only joking they were oractice shots but who knows maybe by the end of the week its something to aim for no?!

Also wrote out some questions for a possible interview and went to interview another person but they refused as it is a dispute situation so I wont say too much more at this stage. Hopefully more soon so watch this space!

As for the equipment etc some differences! They use Sky feeds which I am beginning to prefer to IRN. Ooops but as they said in Rome de gustibus non est disputandem!

They also use a non Burli system for play ins which is interesting took a bit of getting used to but there now........I think! no I am!

But they have Cool Edit which I cant wait to have a newsworthy excuse to use!

Also got something to prepare for tomorrow so they are using me which is nice and appreciated and means I am off now. But for a first day I'm happy!

2007-01-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

HMM INTERESTING.....

....okay, I'm not usually so excited but this time I think I have found some fun stuff that I thought I'd share and for which I will probably have to claim my geek membership card.

I bring you the picture taking madness of the Transparent Screens:

What you do is take a picture of something behind your screen-Laptop, ipod, PSP or otherwise and then align your Screen so it matches then take a photo. Simple but surprisingly cool!

If done well you don't even need photoshop and at most photoshop is only needed to sort out colour/light matching

Here's some of my favourites:

For more check out Flickr's topic: Transparent Screens

Also check these two out: Screen 1 Screen 2

Have fun!

2006-12-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

So, the term has finished......

and my exams are over for now as well as a hectic term trying to keep up with the challenges of the course I am doing in Journalism. So a welcome break then?

Well no......Journalism is less a 9-5 more a vocation, something you cant switch off from- shorthand still needs practice for one thing. There is an essay due after christmas too so....some rest but still a to do tray.

Not to mention the nice array of football matches to get fat on this christmas, tomorrow I am up at some hour I really dont wanna visit often in the morning to get to Stamford Bridge. Why? Yes I am probably insane. I think Nick Hornby said it best with his book called fever pitch. Yes I have football fever. Anyway the purpose of said jaunt is to get an official coach to Goodison Park home of the Toffees, or to the uninitiated Everton FC. Hopefully the journey home will be accompanied by a sweet three points! Then its up to Newcastle on weds! followed by more games and more games!

So.......my christmas is going to be nicely spent with some cement between the football bricks being meetings with my friends and family at various points!

oh and the return of a certain Doctor..........

Happy christmas all! Whatever you are doing!

2006-12-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

So Gordon Brown has deliverd his final Budget.....

And the response could be summed up with the classic use of a rewrite of a Stranglers song:

Here is Gordon Brown:

Gordon Brown taxing for fun
raising up, with our money he runs
Bring out the kite
No more cheap flights,
Never a pound with Gordon Brown

Every budget just like the last:
”No blips unlike Tories past,”
Tory’s scent gains,
flex Osborne’s brains
Ever a moan with Gordon Brown

Gordon brown: finer in excess
Through no peerages he's heading

West
To number ten
prays for the day
Blair leaves a clown in Gordon Brown

Labour will frown
With Gordon Brown
Labour will frown
With Gordon Brown

Environmentalists say he has not gone far enough and for once that green tax will not be the only or indeed enough of a solution. Motorists, business, particularly airlines, and the ordinary average income bod on the street have been annoyed saying the rises are excessive for all the good they will do. The Tories meanwhile led by Labour baiter deputy in chief Osborne have been beavering away at Gorgeous Gord's economic foundations on which he plans to launch his Prime Ministerial leadership when he takes over from the fatally damaged Blair.

The "flyweight" in the Blue Corner has decided to duck the "Great Clunking Fist" of the "Heavyweight" and moved in close with his scalpel to claim, in my own simple terms: Brown's pants should have skidmarks. Brown may not have had a catastrope (yet) like Black Wednesday but, Osborne contends in an article by the Times, Brown presides over a little shop of economic horrors. It is these that are catching up with us and Brown. In another Times article his Budget is criticised for its lack of new and imaginative ideas, being content to meander along the same old lines with some minor extensions.

It seems that Brown's PM bid is being scuttled before the champagne bottle christens the good ship Gord with the invisible hand of Murdoch maybe wavering in its support of the Red team from Millbank.

Nonetheless barring a complete Ed Balls up from Labour, Brown should enjoy a "Major". That is just about winning an election he probably should lose. After all, the rumblings may only be beginning and opposition parties always get a boost during a parliament as a warning to government. Come general elections though, short of complete discreditation it seems a case of better the devil you know rather than a Macavity who you cant pin down. (Note in no way is David Cameron like Macavity in his other activities/attributes and neither am I suggesting so).

So Mr Cameron, if you do wish to win the election, the honeymoon is over. Your new year's resolution should you choose to accept it is to make some concrete policies which people can decide they actually like or not. The public like the talk but they want the walk. If your policies float like a butterfly then sting like a bee and give Brown some concrete shoes, its sink or swim gentlemen, sink or swim.

2006-11-29T07:09:00.000-08:00

Chelsea 0 Shame 1

Before we start I should like to make clear I am not ashamed of supporting Chelsea. I have done so partly due to family reasons and also I hasten to add before the Abramovich era-indeed for most of my life.

However the last week has made me feel ashamed on behalf of decent Chelsea supporters.

Kicking off in Bremen for the Champions league match I like to go and see parts of the place Chelsea are visiting rather than the nearest pub or beer hall. However there is nothing wrong with this, each to their own. I just feel I can do that at home just as reasonably while I may never visit Bremen again. I would like to though as it is very picturesque -pictures soon (writing this at uni and my pictures are not on the hard disk obv).

While looking round I visited a wonderful cathedral St Petri. While inside the building which reminded me in some parts like I was in my own version of the Da Vinci code I went into the quiet room.

Here was where I first became shocked at the behaviour of some Chelsea fans as in what I presume to be a visitors book some mono braincelled fan had scrawled Chelsea 3 Krauts 0.
Not very pleasant for many reasons. I presume the priest was at least fairly broadminded as next to the slogan was written the phrase "forgiven them father for they know not what they do".

I was also fortunate to find myself at the team hotel and saw Jose Mourinho and one or two players before having to leave to get to the game but again one or two fans had to sully the atmosphere.

The first instance depends on your view point but some fans had gone to ask for Mourinho's picture/autograph as he was walking by. He said no and put up his hand. Now, whatever you think of the merits of this, as far as I am concerned thats where I'd leave it. Instead these fans walked away a bit before become mildly abusive.

Also at the hotel whilst waiting in vain for the players to get on their coach I witnessed the shameful name calling of a couple walking in the lobby to the lift. The reason for their victimisation ? The couple comprised a man of middle eastern appearance and a woman in a hijab. Like I said mono braincelled, some supporters.

At the match itself I witnessed a Chelsea fan obliterate a seat through various loutish behaviour.

Then at Manchester United at the weekend the bad apple element reared their ugly heads again. Man U were giving a tribute to George Best one of the finest footballers of his and arguably every generation, a year on from his death. Some Chelsea fans decided to sing derogatory chants about Man U/Best and also to sing about Chelsea's Peter Osgood, also arguably one of the best footballers of his era, during the tribute. Now whilst chanting for Peter Osgood, who sadly passed away earlier this year, is arguably a more positive one than the derogatory chants the time was not appropriate. The only decent response was to join in the celebratory songs or maintain a dignified silence.

However I must stress again this seems to be a minority element of knuckleheads with the vast majority of Chelsea fans being law-abiding and repectful of others. I just could not keep my silence about the idiots any longer.

2006-11-23T14:47:00.000-08:00

Nietzsche/Wolfe-Another Perspective

Okay, first of all I have not blogged for a while been busy but also wanted to make sure my reasoning was ok on this one. This is another view that spun off the blog by Chris Horrie , one of the tutors at westmin uni Journalism. The blog was concerned with Tom Wolfe and his views on Nietzsche and can be found at Changing Journalism.

This was my view:

But you will fail, he warned, because you cannot believe in moral codes without simultaneously believing in a god who points at you with his fearsome forefinger and says "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not."

Is this necessarily the case? Just because Nietzsche is one of the more modern political thinkers does not mean he sweeps over old philosophical traditions like new research into science would.

Firstly from the ancient Greek philosophers we learned that what is centrally important to human existence is our ability to reason. This is not logical steps or even rationality as we can sometimes behave in neither manner, but our ability to use our sometimes fallible logic and rational ability to reason in the abstract, i.e. imagine a world without moral codes and thus reason that moral codes are necessary regardless of an existence of a god.

This leads on to social contract theory and also leans on liberal thinkers such as John Stuart Mill. For example one of his arguments can be summed up thus. The right for me to throw my fist ends at your face. This is because my liberty should not infringe on your liberty. If one adds in the principle of utility we can draw a social contract of morals without the need for a god. This would go like this:

I cannot go round randomly killing people. Why? This would be wrong? Why? Because other people will also be free to kill me! Do I want this? No! Why? As I would not be able to live my life and fulfil whatever potential I have.

Having reasoned that killing people is not a good idea I have to convince others of this. Supposedly if my persuasion is good enough and they are reasonable enough they would agree with my idea. Together these others would sign a social contract to enable us to walk around and freely live our lives. The reason why we don’t kill each other is because living is a more preferable situation than being dead. Thus the utility of everyone living supersedes the liberty of people to freely kill each other.

Show me the god in that argument. Also show me somebody who would not see that as a reasonable argument for do not kill. However we can still shorten this using Orwell’s principle of to the point language back to the original You Shall not Kill. Just the reason is different!

As for the “barbaric brotherhoods of Nazism and Communism” both of these were borne out of flawed and downright malicious interpretations of philosophical works principally Marx and ironically Nietzsche himself. I shall avoid paradoxical arguments about if Nietzsche had not written about the Ubermensch and the Will to Power whether the Nazis would have been able to exploit and twist them for now. Clearly though these brotherhoods were not simply a creation of destiny but malignant human beings.

Nationalism, which the Nazis also perverted in their nasty time in power, is in itself not necessarily a bad phenomenon. Without nationalism it is harder to justify democracy for example-rule by ones peers. Well surely those peers have to be defined somehow and usually it is as citizens. Citizens of what? Well, a nation. That does not necessarily mean Britain, which is a state. A nation is a people with a common language, history, culture etc. However at no point is nationalism necessarily advocating demolishing other nations. That there is expansionist nationalism returns us again to the machinations of the human mind.

However, nationalism can be creative not destructive. For example the desire to preserve customs and traditions against an aggressor, like the free Tibetan movement in the face of Chinese occupation.

Because of man's track record, I should think.

Precisely, there in lies the enigma and answer to the problem. Once we thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. Until we stop making excuses for ourselves and have another paradigm shift-that we are at the centre of our thoughts, actions, beliefs-than we will continue to have wars.

Yes wars were bloodier in the twentieth century. But then the technology of war was also bloodier.

Religion too has had its bad days, atheism is not the only killer.

The Crusades, surely a religious fight if ever there was one was hardly less bloody in context of the era, technological or otherwise.

The Spanish armada, although a failure, also had a religious motive as well as a political one.

There were the wars of religion in France from 1562-1598.

Today, one can argue against Nietzsche’s assertion that God is Dead, as he seems to be making something of a comeback, perhaps Nietzsche missed a trick by not patenting cycles of religious belief followed by belief in non-religious rationality. The disillusionment with one reinvigorates the other.

In the present day religion can also be “blamed” for some atrocities. Have not Islamic fundamentalists created their own “barbaric brotherhoods” with which they terrorise others. “Infidels” are basically anyone that do not conform to the fundamentalists violent expansionist version of Islam be they atheist, Christian, Jew, Buddhist and even Muslims. This terrorism has fuel dumped on the fire by the religious right in America, where the priincipal battle ground is Iraq

Yet the Bible or the Koran does not kill people. Human beings who interpret scripture strictly, or more likely bring their own twisted strict interpretation to scripture kill people. This can be applied to Christianity as much as Islam. Back to thou shalt not kill again in the ten commandments. There are no ifs for aggressive wars, no buts for capital punishment just a full stop at the end of thou shalt not kill.

Thus like an atomic wind through the neurones there seems a recurring theme. At the centre of the chaos, the death, the crumbling edifices of “gods”, be they religious or psychological, past, present or future ones like genetics and neuroscience, remain humans.

Perhaps that is the truth to which Dawkins refers and of which we should not be afraid.

But perhaps the truth hurts the most of all and that IS why we run, and we erect barriers and “gods” as excuses. The New God never dies as we create new ones like neuroscience to excuse our actions “I’m wired wrong!” or “My Genes made me do it!”

Remove these excuses and we have to take a long hard cold look in the mirror and into our own eyes and see whether we do have souls and what souls they are. Ultimately, who we as a species want to be and perhaps that’s the revaluation, of which Nietzsche referred, we need.

If we are Hobbesian bastards we WILL fail but then perhaps we deserve to. If on the other hand we are not, using reason we CAN create moral codes out of respect and empathy for our fellow man, and maybe then we can Will to Power in the more creative manner, which Nietzsche envisaged, possibly using our will power to realise it is us that control our actions and their consequences rather than some “gods” we create.

Ultimately, you can believe what you want to believe, that is the beauty of life and your own will to choose your beliefs.

Just don’t close your mind; it’s the only sound worse than a closing door.

2006-11-09T03:20:00.000-08:00

Two places at once?!!!!

I am finding myself so busy at the moment and also getting tired in the process so much so I managed to oversleep twice in two days which is not good.

Not good because the commute to westmin is long and involves the sometime unreliable transport medium of trains thus I am late!

Thus the desire to be in two places at once!

It seems its not just me but the whole world. A member of my course (albeit the periodical path-I'm on boradcast) has mentioned her long to do list and scienctists discussing "slow-down time".

Well moving on from this, at the game yesterday, Samsung's new ad campaign for their mobile phone range Ultra also plays on the being in two places at once idea.

Added to this was more scientific research, which I read two weeks ago in the New Scientist, that basically an elephant can be in two places at once.

How?

Well, unfortunately it will not really help us mere mortals as the hypothetical situation relies on the need for a blackhole and bystander perspective.

Briefly summing up, if an observer is outside an event horizon of a blackhole watching
as an elephant approaches it, the observer will see the elephant slow down but never "fall" into the blackhole.
If on the other hand, the observer is able to survive directly above the event horizon the observer will see the elephant enter the blackhole and return as radiation. Thus the elephant can theoretically be in two places at once, no copies, same elephant, different places.

Unfortunately, while this is interesting from a science view, it still does not solve my sleeping or time management issues but hey! at least my blog has a much needed entry and I can cross it off my to do list temporarily.

Onwards and hopefully upwards!

2006-11-03T03:51:00.000-08:00

What is it with Commuters?

Some other members of my course have also raised this phenemenon of rude, inconsiderate, or even woefully blind commuters, too wrapped up in their own rush to notice anybody else.

Today it was my turn.

Waterloo station, heading towards the escalators for the underground from the platform and this man came barrelling towards me.

I noticed he was trailing a case on wheels behind him so I realised side stepping was only going to trip me up. So I stopped, as his then course would miss me to my left.

But no he seemed oblivious to my considerate gesture and actually continued to move towards me, changing direction even. Perhaps if he had looked up rather than blindly assuming I would leap out of his way into a wall I would not have got irritated enough to add to the growing social study of commuter behaviour. Or perhaps he did not even see me engrossed in clutching his morning cuppa.

In my opinion he was a fool!

After all I thought we were meant to be social animals. So how come we seem to have lost the ability to organise ourselves properly when we come together en masse. The above is a less dangerous microcosmic example of the kind of blind tunnel mentality that helps cause multiple pile-ups on the motorways. One man (or woman, but admittedly it is statistically a male) in a rush suddenly sees a bigger opening for a lane change then he would normally attempt and bang! all hell breaks loose.

So remember your journey to work. You may have done it a thousand times. But always remain alert. Do not autopilot. Think where people are in relation to you and try to move accordingly.

This way we may all have less collisions. In cars or otherwise.

2006-10-31T10:07:00.000-08:00

Banging On A Theme

Okay, so its time to return to Orwell. Sorry but today got me thinking about the whole perversion of language because the BIG story of the day was the report by Sir Nicholas Stern.

WHO? The treasury economist.

Oh so its some boring essay on taxes then?
NO

So what the hell IS it about then?
Climate Change

Oh. THAT.

Yes that and its those two words that got me thinking. Climate Change! FRIGGING CLIMATE CHANGE! I thought we were serious about the environment and the DAMAGE yes DAMAGE we are doing to it. I thought the more extreme political right had been defeated and debunked as suicidal crackpots.

But no.

Why?

Because they won the language war. Because climate change can be explained away. After all climate changes throughout history. There have been cycles of warmer and colder periods throughout Earth history, so the naysayers of climate change can argue whose to say this is not an exceptional warm period in the cycle?

Whereas there is growing evidence of the environmental DAMAGE or VANDALISM we are and have inflicted on our planet. Climate change will not just change our weather and affect us directly. The changes will affect us indirectly by demolishing ecosystems. Food chains may be disrupted as animals unable to cope with the vast pace of damage become extinct. Water sources, already becoming scarce may dwindle, causing possible water wars. Thus the climate will not be the only aspect vandalised but the Earth's surface itself will become distorted. What happened in the former Soviet Union with the Aral sea may become more prevalent even without human interference via dams. (The Aral sea is an example of human damage to the environment. It has shrunk due to rivers being diverted for irrigation. The sea is heavily polluted due to weapons testing, industrial projects and fertilizer runoff).

Combat climate change? Well its a bit wishy washy after all it might change for the better tomorrow.

Combat global environmental vandalism? My god who are these vandals?

On a slightly less serious note but no less misleading are companies, usually car dealerships, who locate in an area but call themselves something different.

E.g. Heathrow Volkswagon. Address: Ashford Middlesex. Last time I checked riots were not happening all the time, or indeed at all. There were no terror scares there either......

HR Owen Heathrow BMW sounds all very posh (good egg and all that) only its in ......West Drayton. Now I have not been to West Drayton but I'm sure its a lovely idyllic place but I guess it does not have the same kudos.

Even schools are getting in on the act!

How about Sir William Perkins (Surrey) going to great lengths to conceal the fact they are located in Chertsey! I have been to Chertsey, lived in Chertsey and its not THAT bad!

Stop lying people!

Else I shall refuse to call a spade a spade. Instead I shall demand it is renamed as a turf digging implement!

2006-10-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

Self Produce...

.........and save the planet?

As some of you may or may not be aware I am a football fan that tries to go to as many games as possible. One such game was the Sheffield United Vs Chelsea game and travelling up there I was talking to a fellow supporter who mentioned her husband grew his own vegetables.

This got me thinking. After all one supermarket slogan is every little helps, well why not with the environment. If those of us with gardens or a greenhouse grew some of our own produce, for our own consumption, the carbon cost of growing vegetables and moving them around the country/planet to move on to supermarket shelves would be decreased- a step towards helping combat climate change.

After all:

There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.
(Bourke Coekran)

2006-10-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

Football is dangerous to your health.

Particularly if you are a goalkeeper! Not just when others challenge you like Hunt did with Cech or Sonko on Cudicini but let us not forget another German in the week Schumi retires. Bert Trautmann played on with a broken neck in an FA Cup final. That was true grit and determination as Alan Hansen would say.

But on a personal note I have also joined the ranks of the slightly screw loose goalkeepers.

The Westmin Journos have set up a five a side indoor team and I volunteered for goalie duties mainly as I have been a goalkeeper before and quite like it.

However trying to dive around on hard flooring is not kind to the human bone system.

I now have two grazed knees some slightly sore elbows-thankfully my goalie jersey saved them from most of the brutality. Having not played football for some four years I seemed to have pulled some muscles in my back which I only discovered this morning having played last night.

But I had a wonderful time and hope my body cooperates by getting better soon so I can start working on my fitness, wheezing like a goldfish out of its bowl is not a good look.

Perhaps I shall also invest in some kneepads and a Moto GP style back protecter and than I can become the first Robogoalie!

2006-10-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

So long....

....... and thanks for all the memories!

Okay, so I did not know the fastest German on four wheels personally.
I never went round his house to play football, never spoke to him and only saw his face as a series of colourful moving pixels/dots on a TV screen.

Still I will miss Michael Schumacher.

I never got close enough to shake him warmly by the hand or look him in the eye and say you are a motor sport genius.

Mind you he knows that anyway!

Yet just by watching him race, the perfect awesome display of man and machine as one. Enjoying his finest hours like his four stopper in France 2004, the wet races where he cajoled a machine of fiercesome speed round a track as slippery as a politician eating eels faster than anyone else. He should have been sponsored by adidas-to him impossible was nothing- stuck in the wrong gear? never mind I'll still take second.
Last race, puncture puts me last, full tank of petrol, nevermind I'll set fastest lap!

And thus I feel this sense of loss. It may only be an end of an era but I supported this man through thick and thin for thirteen years.

He first came to my attention in 1993. The British Grand Prix in fact. The Williams, to those who have only followed the sport recently, was in its pomp. A class above the field. The Renaults of their day. And here was this young gun in a Benetton-probably an early season Honda or a Toyota, not only keeping pace but at times splitting them.

I was in awe, that guy must be unbelievable. And so my support began.

It's like supporting Manchester United or Liverpool and then they suddenly say oops no sorry we aren't playing anymore. On a smaller scale but that is the kind of paradigm shift I face.

Who or why am I going to keep watching F1? Much as it is claimed to be a team sport its not. Its about the drivers. Before Schumacher I supported Mansell. So 1993 was my who do I watch year but back then you had a host of names to keep you involved-Senna, Prost returning, Berger, Alesi. And then Schumi happened!
All characters off the track as well as on. Even Schumacher can be relied on to spice things up-say what you will about the incidents but come on- Jerez, Monaco '06, they were talking points, still are.

Today Schumacher Junior is good for a quote off the track but is not really doing the business on it, Alonso is fast but still seems, I don't know, too moody and his off track persona will only get worse at the strictly corporate straitlace Mclaren.

Raikkonen I have decided has no respect. Having watched the way he dismissed a presentation from Pele-a god if not the god of football-to Schumacher who, rightly or wrongly, is the King of F1 Stats seemed churlish. Even if you did not like Schumacher, or indeed football, surely anybody who is not too self absorbed would realise the sense of the occasion and said something better than I was having a shit!

Oh god! I'm turning into Mourinho banging on about respect!

Moving swiftly on I guess 2006 will be 1993 again watching and seeing if there is somebody I admire enough to support. Maybe as a would be tifoso, converted by Schumacher's move to Ferrari I will support a Ferrari driver after all.

Its about time a Brazilian rose to the mantle of champion once again.....

In fact it had been 13 years since a Brazilian won their home grand prix.
2007 will be 13 years since the death of the great Ayrton Senna.

2006-10-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Truth is the truth is the consensus of current belief.

I think...

.....therefore I am.

Descartes. One of the most important philosophical conclusions.

Well I have been doing a LOT of thinking recently. Indeed its probably one of the things I do well.

I am always thinking. Probably too much and not always about intelligent stuff either.

Like on the way home I was thinking about the merits of a McD cheeseburger meal. I resisted only because the nearest McD on my journey is at the frenetic Waterloo station and queuing for a McD in the hustle and bustle with my ears being pounded by train announcements was as appealing as putting on a wetsuit filled with blubber.

Generally I whizz through Waterloo quicker than Fernando Alonso on crack. If he took crack that is!

Anyway I also thought about various strands I had been taught/worked on/musings and frankly I have to agree with Stephen Fry who has released a new book based on his show QI called General Ignorance. Basically its starting point is that we know nothing. And it would be better to admit we know nothing.

Then damn coincidence reared itself again and Jeremy Clarkson mentions a similar vein of thought in one of his books based on his newspaper articles. The more we're told the less we know-in essence if you know little about a topic-for example muclear weapons its very easy to paint a black and white picture of the world-our weapons good North Korea's bad.

When really all nuclear weapons are bad but its a Pandora's box thats impossible to close. Thus its hard to know what to do to control the situation. If it is controllable that is. What could be called the spiral effect may kick in and blow down the house of cards us human piggies live in. North Korea now has a bomb, possibly it will or have detonated a second. Time believes Korea will be the test case for Iran to see how tough the Security Council is or can be. Then if Iran does manage to get a bomb a whole host of countries from Turkey to Egypt will start clamouring to join the club. So what then? Do we say no? Which is hypocritical really as we have nuclear weapons why can Turkey not? They are meant to be almost responsible enough for EU membership but fears over human rights remain, despite being an ally in the "war on terror". Or indeed Egypt? Or say yes in which case why not hand them out like christmas presents? But this increases the chance of some mad lunatic one day setting off the biggest firework display to bring down our final curtain. So we return to the beginning. Perhaps we should get rid of all nuclear weapons.......but the genie is out of the bottle, the knowledge is there and if we dont have them someone else may break ranks and start the whole race up again so does anybody have an answer? Not so easy is it.

Anyway Descartes also suggested the same thing with his think therefore I exist idea as he believed memory was unreliable so only a person's present thoughts were the truth at any one time.
Socrates could also be looked at here with his Method. This he used to deflate an opinionated person and their argument if it lacked logical thought behind it, again proving that convictions are not necessarily built on rock but the changing sands of time.

Like Pluto. Planet? Nope not anymore but a textbook from the eighties will proudly display this as fact. Once people KNEW without a doubt Earth was the centre of the universe and that the Earth was flat. Who knows what we will "know" in the future.

Therefore truth is relative. The sooner we learn this and accept it the sooner we can move on from dogma and fundamentalism. We can try and remake a freer society where, what is commonly attributed to Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", is the attitude of the day.

The truth is like the sun in Plato's story, we can be blinded by it and miss the shadows all around us.

2006-10-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Power of Prescience and some Apologies.

What a strange week it has been but more on that later. First some apoligies.
Firstly sorry this is going to be another somewhat involving post-I had aimed to do something light like a piece on toasted cheese but that will have to come another day.

Secondly Neil (of a good football blog A Load of Ballacks) has rightly pointed out my little rant on armchair fans at the beginning of the Sofia post was not as well thought out as I would have liked.
For the record I do not think armchair fans are any less knowledgeable about football. What I was driving at (and again prices in this country maybe make this hard) is that some, not all, armchair fans may not fully realise the hassles supporters who go to games sometimes endure-particularly away games.

On to prescience.

pre·science (prĕsh'əns, -ē-əns, prē'shəns, -shē-əns) pronunciation
n.
Knowledge of actions or events before they occur; foresight.

Chris Horrie-yes him again, stunned us with his powers of prescience in the first week of our course. First up he gave an example of a good Hey Doris! story: dogs biting babies faces off. Hey Doris! is the kind of story that has people talking in corner shops. A couple days later the Rottweiler story breaks. Next he talks about old people and the aging society, a couple of days later a story on age discrimination.

Well it seems doing Journalism turns you into some weird magnet for coincidental occurences. I was talking to David Dunkley-Gyimah, one of our lecturers, whose award winning site viewmagazine is linked on the right, about the future of Journalism after his lecture. I found the idea that everything will live online intriguing and said I could see that happening particularly with TV or as it may be termed in the future Net Vision or NV. He said not only would Laptops, Computers and PDA's (personal digital assistant) carry this stuff, with ease of use via wi-fi, but you may one day be able to see it in the air with no screen.

Well David check this out:

http://blog.pcnews.ro/2006/10/11/cheoptics360-show-holographic-ads/

Why will it stop at ads? If the Tech is there it can be improved on so one day holographic communication and viewing-a technology I have prayed to see since I saw it first in a game called Syndicate Wars-could be common place.

Journalism may not need newsrooms anymore, you could truly have a virtual newsroom with reporters just beaming themselves, like they do in star wars, into your living room to tell you the news where they were.

One of the things David was teaching us was Web 2.0. Well what do you know? I read Time magazine and in the latest issue (Runs till 23 Oct 2006)it has a section on the next YouTubes and "what you need to know about Web 2.0.". Exciting stuff.

In the same issue a reader mentions 1984 again something we have covered only last week and Time notes in its editorial, To Our Readers, how the internet has revolutionised its reporting via its website. Good Stuff.

And personally I had to write a piece on the history of radio where I discovered Marconi may not actually have invented the radio after all. In America the patents important for early radio were awarded to a man more synonymous with electricity- Nikola Tesla. Lo and behold I saw in a paper the other day a film is being made starring one of my favourite singers David Bowie as........yep Nikola Tesla!

So they may be coincidences but they have happened in such a short space of time surely there is some kind of hotspot where Journalism is concerned. Guess it goes with the territory.

2006-10-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

Football as a form of Religion?

It was inevitable really! I am a football fan and I like to philosophise so I was thinking what is religion? What is football? Why can football not be a religion itself?

Bear with me!

re·li·gion (rĭ-lĭj'ən)
n.
Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Notice the last one in particular! I am not mad enough to go down the route of pretending footballers are supernatural although to cloud matters it can be said they have a god given talent.

But no the last one: A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Is that not what football can be defined as-an activity pursued with zeal and conscientious devotion. The football fan going to the matches every other saturday or every week or every game. Is that not devotion? You could reference in the Coca Cola ad campaign Eat Drink Sleep Football. Maybe make it the first commandment of football fans.

Ok what about places of worship? Football has those the Stadiums. Some have become synonymous with their own folklore and traditions-Old Trafford, Camp Nou, Anfield. Some are even poetic with grand sounding names that sound almost reverential like the Stadium of Light. Re-read that. Stadium of Light, it reminds, me anyway, of the quote by Jesus I am the Light of the World. Mind you Sunderland fans are experiencing some dark days at their Stadium of Light but Benfica are faring better.

Ok what about rites. Well fans all have similar rites of passage particularly the lean years. I am quite lucky at the moment that my team is doing well and was doing fairly well when I began supporting them-in the mid nineties.
BUT my mother who has supported them for longer has had to bear with the last gasp saves from relegation, actual relegation and all thats in between.

There are rules within the actual game itself but also the pre-match rituals. The pre-match and post-match pint and the match day pie-a football fans communion and wine.

There are the religious symbols of our devotion-the football shirts,

and like the ancient Greeks and Romans players (or in ancient world warriors) that have distinguished themselves in battle (matches) are promoted to gods with a small g.

So you have Peter Osgood the King of Stamford Bridge who if there was a church of football would gain a sainthood, Gianfranco Zola the Italian Wizard of the Bridge, Cantona the god of the Theatre of Dreams, Bobby Moore and Upton Park, Don Revie for Leeds and Alan Shearer at Newcastle-these names have lived on long after their deaths in some cases and will i am sure in those still present. In this sense they have been canonized:

can·on·ize (kăn'ə-nīz')
tr.v., -ized, -iz·ing, -iz·es.
To declare (a deceased person) to be a saint and entitled to be fully honored as such.
To include in the biblical canon.
To include in a literary canon.
To approve as being within canon law.
To treat as sacred; glorify.

as the last one: To treat as sacred; glorify

And the world over has them, Pele, Di Stefano, Eusebio, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Messi, Kempes, Passarella, Maradona, Garrincha, and so on around the world. Beckenbauer the Kaiser.

Football has its hymns-the anthems or terrace chants and sung at full volume in a stadium at capacity can be electrifying.
I have yet to hear a better version of You'll Never Walk Alone than when sung at Anfield.

I could go on but I fear that extra time shall have to suffice.

2006-10-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

Religion: Personal, Political or Problematical.

Is religion the cause of the morass we are in? Or has it been tainted by our own mess?
Is religion itself inherently bad or is it those that practise it?
Should religion be confined to the home or should it be something that defines a section of society and their laws?
Or should religion itself be made redundant in a brave new world of technological advancement-advancement which brongs us uncomfortably close to rebuilding the Tower of Babel-i.e being unto like God?

As ever there are no definitive answers. As Morpheus in the matrix said you can believe what you want to believe. I think religion and globalisation have come together and ultimately will reinvigorate each other but on the fringes the extremes have also frayed and crossed over-religion is neither cause and effect which leads on to inherence.

No religion is inherently bad. It all comes down to interpretation. I'm sure somebody could reinterpret Buddhism in a fundamentalist way and decide for example that the destruction of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan calls for a worldwide defence of Buddhism against Islamic fundamentalists (Buddhists are allowed to defend themselves just not be the aggressors). Christian history is littered with acts of cruelty that are today considered deplorable. Islam has done much for culture around the world.

However I think we are at risk of losing a happy medium we had since the enlightenment. We perhaps need to return to the early liberals such as John Stuart Mill and his idea that can be synthesised thus-my right to throw my fist ends at your face-. In other words, religion should be freely expressed in public be it wearing a cross or a hijab maybe even the veil if freely chosen, but a theocracy which forces people to follow a set of religious rites is wrong.

Religion also is needed more than ever to help reinforce a rigorous moral and ethical examination of our potential advances because while we have unlocked many mysteries of the body there is as of yet and probably will never be a gene for the soul.

2006-10-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

North Korean Sanctions

Among the sanctions against North Korea was the non supply of miltitary equipment such as tanks, helicopters and missile systems.

Also any material that would help North Korea's fledgling nuclear programme.

Funds of those helping North Korea's nuclear programmes and North korea's weapons related exports are also banned.

My only question is what the?

I mean why was this not being done already?!!!!!

2006-10-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

Rise of the Blec and Just Who is Running the Farm?

I am on a journalism course at Westminster uni.

Today one of our tutors called Chris Horrie, who I have decided reminds me
of Columbo, i.e quickwitted under cover of chaos, gave a lecture.

His lectures will be available online at our coursesite and thus blec (web lecture) is created.

His lecture was on language and how to write good pieces of journalism.

Enter Orwell who wrote many key works, none more so than 1984 with its thought police,
ministry of truth etc.

Orwell came up with a theory that as thought is conveyed by language, thoughts could be controlled by "owning" the language.

I learned that there are so many examples of such language Orwell predicted all around us,
for example nuclear deterrent. The West has a nuclear deterrent, our allies have a nuclear deterrent
but our enemies have a nuclear bomb. The technology is the same, more likely the West's is more advanced, and if used the end result is the same-mass death. Yet try campaigning against a deterrent-you would be labelled a member of the loony left who would like to dance naked through Siberia inviting hardened criminals back to your house for tea and cake.

Orwell also argued in an essay on the English language that modern english was filling up with grand sounding words that mean little: indefatigable for example sounds very nice amongst politce circles but really what is wrong with tireless?

i.e He travailed indefatigablely

it actually can be phrased He worked tirelessly

Right now we all know what we are talking about.

But this got me thinking: governments are creating new word groups/forms/words themselves to try to change our thinking so for example wars are no longer wars. We have humanitarian interventions which sounds noble and enables us to believe that civilians will be protected and deaths will be minimal. This is why when civilians are killed they were not killed they become collateral damage-part of the cost of fighting a humanitarian intervention. But war by definition is not humane. We have a War on Terror. You cannot have war on a noun, else we better start nuking dictionaries. Actually some people may like that no words no thought and we can shuffle like lambs to our end.

On the other hand we have academics, businesses and countless others building up language into these huge complex mazes which when unwound like a ball of string there is nothing inside.

"Implemeting our core competencies we furnish customer centric bespoke turnkey solutions"

This may sound amazing to a potential customer, who may think gee they must know what they are doing look at those long words but does anyone know what it means?

ok if you did without cheating and looking words up congratulations; go on countdown, write a technology manual etc.

But for those that didnt get it and/or cheat

"Using our strengths we give a made for you solution that will open up chances for you"

or

"We create for you"

Anyway like Chris Horrie I have gone off what I wanted to say which is if one group are perverting language to change the way we think and another group is trying to build language that just does not mean anything to most people who the hell is running our modern day animal farm?

Does anybody actually know?

Or perhaps one Blair has simply improved on a previous Blair and decided that why bother controlling language to stop ideas, why not do away with ideas themselves. Perhaps thats why his education policy is a shambles. He likes it that way!

2006-10-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

REPOST of a blog I made on a previous site

Levs in Sofia

Armchair football fans know nothing about support for a club! Saying that some clubs dont care for anything but the armchair fan but thats a diff blog! Right now I will say is fancy getting up at 2am to catch a 6:40 from gatwick? Hmmm Lev number one!
Lev number two! Because Bulgaria are currently out of the EU and the Eurozone their currency is the mighty Lev:

1 Bulgarian lev = 0.346429405 British pound

BUT! They are quite hard to get hold off so end up not flying with any Levs!

Anyhow off we go and to be fair sofia is an ok city but it did not help that it was just like england usually weather wise, i.e Lev number three RAIN!

Oh hum but they have for delight of lovers of fast food the golden arches and some other nice western eateries but we went to a Happy grill which does a mix of both types of food.For the record Bulgarian food is supposed to be typical european cuisine i.e bread, yogurt and fresh milk, cheese, tomatoes, paprika.
For a more in depth visit

http://www.bulgariantourism.com/info/vi_food.php.

As for tourist attractions predominant in the skyline I visited was St Alexander Nevski Memorial Church or Cathedral

However there are a couple more attractions if the weather is nice see

http://www.sidestep.com/travel-guides/text/europe/bulgaria?destId=FR3535&narrativeId=FR3535010029

use google images for pics as the info here is nice and concise.

WARNING! by the St Alexander Nevski are market stalls which could be ok but I did not get anything from them and would not regardless of Levs they seem to sell either knock off or genuine WW2 memorabilia from Nazis and Soviets which either way cannot be right. Also religious icons.

Lev number four was in nervous laughter as they seem obsessed with knives there- they had them on the market stall and one shop had fully fledged swords in the window display all very worrying and the match hadnt started yet.........

Lev number five was very similar. Our stewards warned us that as Levski fans love their flares they try to hide em down their pants. So we too were threatened with an intimate body search!......Levly!

In the end we seemed to be spared this but then it might have been a slack night as flares seemed to be strangely present in pockets of the Levski crowd! so what happened there then?

Hmmm anyway the final laugh (I as you have have got bored of the crappy pun) was for early parts of the game Chelsea looked like they would lose and then to cap it all we let them score in the dying minutes when a clean sheet was screaming to be kept. Lets face it if we cant keep out Levski what hope the combined mights of Ronaldinho Messi et al........

Dochuvane