Leicester 1 v 1 Arsenal

Leicester City 1 v 1 Arsenal

I've had to limit where I go for Arsenal information.

The media as watchdog is absolute shit
The TV telling you what to think

The Jam – Art School

Too many don't watch the game and make their own, informed, impressions. Too many take to the Internet, Twitter particularly, quoting whatever the guys in the commentary box or telly studio as if that's the absolute truth.

I think, to a lesser or greater extent, that that's because, as football's hit a peak of popularity, there's no end of plastic fans and supporters about, and there's no end of men and women who've never kicked a ball in anger spouting opinions they're unqualified to spout.

Unfortunately, among those doing the spouting, are tabloid and broadsheet journalists.

You better speak up now if you want your piece
You better speak up now it won't mean a thing later
Yesterday's news is tomorrow's fish 'n' chip paper

Elvis Costello – Fish 'n' Chip Paper

Flick through the papers after any game.

Players will stroke passes. The ball will be blasted over the bar. They'll hurtle into tackles, pick out slide-rule passes and caress it into the net.

They'll report on the goals, talking points like penalty awards, red cards, and the like. They'll then transcribe extracts from the managers' post-match interviews (freely available on You Tube, if anyone wants them). Job done, hit 'send', laptop lid slammed shut, kettle and slippers on.

It isn't all like that. The Blizzard is a collection of longer, better, football writing, the football equivalent of The Nightwatchman.

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same

Kipling – If

Having your own opinion isn't always so useful, socially, and that's probably behind a lot of willingness to spout cliché and repeat what everyone else is saying.

I've always thought If's a bit overwrought and over-quoted, but that triumph and disaster line's spot on. To the plastic fan, it's as if they've got that bang on the head condition where they forget everything every morning.

Yes, a draw with Leicester is a disappointment. It isn't the end of the world. Collectively, Twitter / Facebook /Blogs / email / text / electronic communication generally and collectively is prone to being bipolar, flipping between those imposters without the slowdown and opportunity for reflection the shades of grey in between represent.

It could be going better, result and performance-wise. We should've bought to replace the Verminator in the summer, because we're light on the defensive cover front. We need to find a way to get the best out of the personnel we've acquired over the last two seasons.

Most of all, we need to ditch that awful blue away kit.

The trolley theory

A pound? Are you off your trolley?

Or: a Lidl philosophical conundrum.

A thought experiment:

Scene one:

You're at the supermarket. Just unloaded the shopping into the back of the car. The bloke in the next door parking bay is doing the same thing.

“I say” he says “here's a quid, take my trolley over there and stow it away with the others. There's a good chap.”

You'll probably put on bit of a Paul Merton voice before responding:

“I'm not your lackey. Shove your quid up our arse.”

So, without a doubt, taking your trolley back for a mere pound is demeaning and definitely not worthwhile.

Scene two:

You unpack our shopping, in the furtherest corner of the car park from the where the trollies are daisychained.

You think about saying “oh, sod it, only a pound”.

But it's your pound. Prepaid to release your trolley from its chains and make it useable.

There's no question.

You replace the trolley, and retrieve the pound.

So, without a doubt, taking your trolley back, even though there's only a pound deposit, is definitely worthwhile.

That is the Lidl Trolley Paradox, or the Aldi Anomaly.

The perfect timing trolley swap

There is also the case where, just as you empty your trolley, someone parks you, flips you a quid, and takes over.

This does not happen often enough, and there are too any number of near misses.

Posh nosh

Naturally, at places like Waitrose, Marks and Spencer, and suchlike, the customers are beyond reproach, trolley-wise, and, sadly, the interesting questions never arise.

Crisps, and almond rocks

Sock it to me

Not earth-shattering.

Not even small lump of semi-congealed mud that was going to shatter under its own insubstantiality in any case shattering.

But it means a lot to me.

Or it may do...

I've found, buried deep in the depths (all five and a half inches of them) of the second drawer down under the top bit of the wardrobe (I'm sure there's a catchier name in cabinet-making circles) the other favourite cricket sock.

That's right, the woolly ones with the cushioned heels and soles and the extra-wide top bits and...okay, enough sock-enthusiasm. I'm putting it on in any case.

Why is it only may do?

Because, although finding the one you thought you'd lost is a good thing, it can flip, suddenly and catastrophically, in “good news and bad news” joke fashion, if you then find that the sock you thought you knew the location of has been moved or (worse still) disposed of.

So, any minute now, I'll go to the garage to get loaded up for cricket, and either sock one (or two, who knows) will either be waiting there, to be reunited with sock two (or one – who knows) like those long-lost sisters meeting up in their eighties having been separated during the WWII evacuation or something, or there'll be the return or resurrection of a forgotten (missing, presumed dead) problem.

Look, I know how you feel...

...I'm awful with suspense, too. So...

I opened the garage door, and there was the other sock, where I left it, hanging over a sheet of hardboard.

I'm considering starting a Socks Reunited website.

Walkers Crisps

Those new flavours. We did a blind tasting thing. On the vegetarian options: hot dog and tomato sauce (I know); Ranch Racoon (I know, why not just cut to the chase and go for Roadkill Barbecue next year?); and cheesy beans on toast.

Unsurprisingly DLL and BLISS didn't guess any correctly.

They did manage to get some pretty vivid descriptions in, though. Apart from all being too sweet, and particularly the cheesy beans being absolutely sickly, there was a rotting flesh, a they must be joking, and a “is this bottom of the kitchen bin, when it's not been emptied for a few days?”.

The meathead ones are no better. The pulled pork is just way too sweet, the sizzling steak fajita is just way way inferior to the old Bovril flavour (and the new Marmite flavour) and way inferior to good old beef flavour, and the chip shop chicken curry is a great opportunity missed. Chips and a pot of curry sauce are genius, so how can you miss the target so badly with a spud based, curry sauce flavoured product?

It's time for the Liverpool supper flavour: double fishcake, chips, and curry sauce. A culinary classic for the wee small hours after a skinfull.

Catching up, more slowly than anticipated

Well, it was looking so good...

Catching up with the posts, the good thing was all the Blue Peter “Here's one I made earlier”s saved up, to come cascading from the Documents/Blog folder, and accelerate the progress. There's a yellow, standard size post-it note, right by my right elbow there. 27/08, 28/08, 29/08, 01/09, 02/09...

Some are in boxes. Tat indicates a sub-folder, with some pictures or quoted stuff or other related files in them. Some are in ellipses, meaning the LibreOffice Writer documents are all there is. But in any case it looked so promising for a bigtime, superspeed catch-up...

But the dates were wrong...

“Hello” I thought, “I may be going mad, but I've posted that before...”

So I checked, and I had.

Playing July catch-up in August, I'd dated the files '08' instead of '07'.

Those Blue Peter files evaporated before my eyes, into thin...thin...what's the computer equivalent of thin air? Evaporated into already used-up binary, or hexadecimals or whatever.

So, back to the drawing board

Suddenly, there's a blank screen and a keyboard where there was the copy, paste and post job a few seconds ago.

Blogger's changed...

About that simple copy, paste and post line there...

...and not for the better

Randomly, sometimes a post loads up with all the pictures and formatting (underlines, italics, etc.) as they were in the original.

More often, the pictures are missing, when you upload them they get bunged in at the start of the post and not where they belong (where the cursor says they'll be positioned) and the return key takes you to the end of the document, and shift+ return actually does the paragraph thing.

Even more often, there's neither formatting nor photos. So there's a lot of fiddling to do before hitting 'Publish' and then more to do re-opening with the 'edit' facility and removing ten million additional empty lines between pictures and text that I didn't put in there, and then hitting 'Update' button.

To be fair to Google, the blogger site does ask for feedback and I never give it any, assuming that they're probably being bombarded by others with similar issues.

There's a lot of good books out about now

One of those buses coming along things. Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Murakami, Will Self, and David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks all at once, and then William Gibson's The Peripheral in November.

From Scotland (or Margate) with love

King Creosote – From Scotland with Love

I don't know how old the photo on the cover is. I have a feeling I'm old enough to have been in it, had we taken our annual week away in Scotland, rather than Margate.

I don't remember much about those holidays. We would've got a bus or the tube into London from Tooting Bec, and then the train. I vaguely remember the soft, fine white sand, and feeling homesick in the B&B.

My dad would've been working as a draughtsman then, while doing his engineering, maths and english nightschool papers.

The music is a sweet, melodic, folky soundtrack, to a film I wouldn't mind watching. I think, had king Creosote not gone for the jokey, tongue in cheek name, he'd have a lot more rave reviews and lot less mid-table obscurity.


Dzeko

Edin Dzeko, pronounced Eh-dan Djek-oh. The Edin sounds a lot like 'eadin'. Which is a good name for a footballer. Eadin' Jecko.

More of them should have similar forenames, indicating the strongest parts of their game, like:

• Shootin' Henry

• Foulin' Shawcross

• Maonin' Rooney

• Gobbin' Ferguson

• Divin' Suarez

• Bitin' Suarez

• Leavin' Suarez

• Cryin' Gascoigne

• Wafflin' Owen

•  Drinkin' Adams

Bin him, soak him and tyre him

Political comment eastern european style

A few years ago, frustrated by the lack of action by their local Bobby, Russian villagers sorted out their local school gates drug dealers. They stuck them in a rusty metal cage and tractored them up and down, while the locals had their say by throwing whatever they liked at them.

Now, in Kiev, where protesters apparently would not tolerate kettling and similar dirty tactics, they've got angry with an MP.

He was thrown in a bin.

In a Ukrainian version of the ice bucket challenge, they doused him with water, but them chucked his briefcase at him. Presumably that didn't do enough damage, so they followed it up with a tyre.

Obviously, they're less inclined to tug the forelock over there, and accept whatever they get from the Moat Cleaners' and Expenses Tappers Social Club.

Myths exploded

Do we need someone with a degree in history running the armed forces? Someone else with a degree in history running the NHS? Who shall we have running education? The environment? Everything generally? I know, career politicians with degrees in history, they're the only ones qualified to run things properly.

Or...

Maybe not...

Iceland has only 325,000 people and more than half of those live in greater Reykjavik.

Reykjavik has had a major in post through a bad economic and extremely challenging time. He hasn't got a degree in history, and he isn't a career politician.

He's a comedian.

A stand up.

He stood for election as a satirical gesture. The Best Party deliberately used awful photos, a hideous typeface (no, BLISS, they didn't stoop to the depths of Comic Sans), crap slogans, the whole nine yards.

They were still more popular than any other party with the voters.

Four years on, Reykjavik, which was on the verge of a Detroit-like bankruptcy and evacuation, is doing okay.

Maybe you don't need those history degree experts in everything othjer than history.

Maybe any Joker will do just as well.

After Scotland...

...Wales must be next. Then Cornwall. Then, I very much want it to be Essex or Kent. Lewis has had its own currency before. The boring economics drone, or the Rebel Yell?

Everton 2 v 2 Arsenal

Everton 2 v 2 Arsenal

This was the game with the “fancy a toffee” and “chew – nil” texts.

Sczezney

Debuchy Chambers Mertesaker Monrael

Flamini

Wilshire Ramsey

Oxlade-Chamberlain Ozil

Sanchez

No target man replacement for Giroud, then. Sanchez starts up the middle. No Poldi either? A sign, an omen, or is the poor bloke just knackered, or injured again? On the way out, says the smart money.

Otherwise, the World Cup winners have returned.

I like Roberto Martinez, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and is a manager determined to succeed playing football the right way.

We conceded a poor goal, and then were very lucky not to give away a penno, before conceding a second. Mertesaker didn't need to dive in and get properly rolled, Chambers needed to stand up and not get left behind on his arse. It shouldn't take an age for cover to materialise. Yes, there was a foul, and yes it was offside, but yes: a total lack of street smartness from our players, in an area where it was desperately needed.

At 2 – 0 down, I really wasn't expecting anything, not against a very good Everton team with a very good record.

Two goals, and a late, late draw, a point that feels like a win.

"Chew - chew" the text said. "Chew-all".

Boring...

The way to play cricket

As Birmingham were playing Surrey in the first semi yesterday, I thought they'd got things absolutely spot on. Ian Bell, 38 from 17 balls, Ricky Clarke 35 from 24. Not about 'going on from a start' to a fifty from sixty or seventy or more balls, not about wickets in hand at the end (that count for nothing), but about scoring, and scoring effectively, efficiently, and quickly. 81, Porterfield, from 45 balls.

Slow, competitive test cricket can be fascinating, but isn't going to convert any non-aficionado to the game.

But most of all, test cricket is for test cricketers, the best players in the world. The best bowlers containing the best bats with the best concentration and the utmost patience.

We're a long way removed from those stellar levels. Yet too often we play like Tavare opening with Boycott, on one of their slower days. Too often we do that in 40-over or similar games where we can't afford too many dot balls, let alone too many maiden overs, and we hand the game to our opponents simply by not playing with one eye on the scoreboard and the overs remaining and the need to get on with it. And we don't even lose the game, we surrender it. Slowly and painfully and boringly. And what do we get from that?

The answer that's occurring to me, more and more frequently, is “less than the square root of bugger all”.

There was a joke doing the rounds, long ago, when Chris Tavare was boring everyone senseless scoring at a rate that made Boycott look like Viv Richards.

“They found a survivor on the Mary Rose.”

“No kiddin'? What did he say?”

“Is Tavare off the mark yet?”

Most of our opponents score at about a run a ball, between five and six runs an over. That means for every dot ball our bats need to score a two. Every two consecutive dots need a four and three of 'em need a six to compensate. If the best you can hope for from the get-go is a long drawn-out draw.

T20 Finals Day

T20 Finals Day

Just had a phone call.

Not sure why I answered it, really.

The carers, something about my mother.

The carer: “Hello. Is BLISS there?”

The Frankly I Don't Give a Damn-er (Me): [Thinks: the first T20 finals day game is just about to start, why on earth do you think I'm interested in my mother, who could, for all I care right now, be atop somewhere very high and threatening to jump] “No.”

The carer: “it's just that she needs her toenails cutting, badly.”

The Frankly I Don't Give a Damn-er: [Thinks: don't you mean she needs her toenails cutting well?] “Right”. (Puts the phone down). [Thinks: you have no idea about what's going on in the world, do you, missus?].

She has such a fragile grip on reality, the carer, that she does not insist that I repeat what she's said, or that I write it down. She thinks I'll remember. Fat chance.

Meanwhile, away from gaga carer land, back to reality, and Sky Sports 2, Surrey opening with Mahmood and Dernbach, Ian Bell twatting them out of the park for thirty-odd from seventeen balls, Elvis is in the crowd, next to the Joker, just up from a herd of Wallies in hooped red shirts and bobblehats.

Surrey / Birmingham, then Hampshire / Lancashire. Right Here, Right Now, Boom (Shake the Room), as they walk out. Another One Bites the Dust blasting out of the PA when they walk back.

Later there's our away game at Everton.

Toenails?

Get a grip lady.

About Time

About Time

We watched About Time, BLISS, DLL and me. It's a funny film, and a nice film. I thought the horizontally laid-back, switched off uncle stole the show, and that Bill Nighy was excellent.

Black and white, shallow thing that I am, because the film involved time travel, I suspended my disbelief. It's a toggle switch in my case. Disbelief: OFF. Eyes down for the main feature.

Infinitely more interesting, nuanced and subtle, DLL has a disbelief dial, which can be set on an infinitely sub-divided analogue scale, so that while, for example, time travel, space travel faster than light (Star Trek), zombies (The Walking Dead), vampires, werewolves and the like are permitted, there have to be definite rules. Rules which will be obeyed.

DLL, in accepting the time travel thing, but needing answers to a long schedule of arising questions, isn't alone:

The Independent says the explanation of time travel is "shockingly inadequate" and that "Curtis keeps leaving questions unanswered – time and time again".
MaryAnn Johanson remarks that there are "arbitrary and inconsistent rules of time travel in aid of creepy romantic manipulation and temporal stalking".

Steve Cummins of The Irish Post refers to Tim travelling backwards and forwards in time when he says the film is "riddled with plot holes".

Megan Gibson writing in Time says: "...sci-fi fans out there likely won’t be able to see [the film's] charms through the gaping time-travel plot-holes".

Critic Matthew Turner points out the "big problem is the unsightly pile-up of plot holes and logic problems".

Kate Erbland of Film School Rejects states "the rules and limitations of Tim's gift aren't exactly hard and fast, and the final third of the film is rife with complications that never get quite explained. Rules that previously applied suddenly don't apply... the time travel rules aren't exactly tight and are occasionally confusing".

Clearly, I'm in the minority, and those loopholes and inconsistencies have affected people's enjoyment of a feel-good film. It is riddled with them, so much so that I wonder whether us guys in the black & white corner might not have had the better time watching it.

Please, go. Now's fine.

Baby, please don't go

Mocked and discredited long, long ago. Ridiculed in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, the myth persists, churned out over and over again by the desperate.

No. Us little folk don't only have what we have thanks to the efforts of those ultra-rich folk, without who we'd be stuffed. Actually, we'd cope. Just fine, thanks.

Even after their actions have brought about a global financial meltdown that has been disastrous for all, fatal for many, they still come out the same old rubbish.

“Unless you pay us huge amounts of money” they say, “and if you limit our massive bonuses, we'll go and work somewhere else, where they appreciate us.”

Off you go then. Don't worry about it if you can't get a taxi. There's shedloads of volunteer drivers to take you.

Yo La Tengo

Listening to this, from 2009, tonight. They can't be accused of producing formula albums. Even across any given album there's contrasts that keep everything fresh. The trashcan rescue cassette on the cover's neat, too.