Layer 413 . . . New Year, Annoying Idiots, Crap Music, Boogie Woogie and Football

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What better way to start the New Year than with a big breakfast? The breakfasts and the coffees at Wetherspoons might not be the very best, but they're possibly the very best value. It's interesting that wherever you go, whichever town or city you visit, you'll find the local Wetherspoons full of people from early morning onward, with the place functioning as a kind of community centre - for friends to meet, families to rest and refresh, and single people to sit with newspapers, coffees, books, laptops, phones, beers, breakfasts, etc.

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Outside - the local teens pass to and fro, most of them wearing only teeshirts in some kind of macho ritual, as they listlessly wander the cold, grey streets. These are not the hoodie crowd - that's a different tribe altogether.

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Can anyone think of a worse way to end one year and begin another than watching Jules Holland's 'Hootenanny'? What's to actually like about a studio full of C List musos plus guest 'celebrities' - all revolving round the ego of the diminutive Mr H?

Isn't this the man who originally played in an appalling band called . . . what the hell were they called? Oh yes - Squeeze.  The Squeegies. How did he go from that rubbish to the status he now enjoys as the BBC's favourite presenter of contemporary music? His whole manner is so digustingly fawning and insincere. It's not that he's not knowledgeable about music - he clearly is. So why does he have to sound like the perenial cheeky cheery chappie from Planet Celebrity? He should dress up in a red jacket like a proper circus ringmaster.

I used to think that for all his annoying mannerisms Jules has at least done his musical bit to popularise some great music - rhythm & blues and boogie woogie  piano. Now though, I'm not so sure. It's equally possible that most people think - well if that idiot likes this kind of music then I'm out of here. Not interested! (And the terrible truth is that Jules is really NOT a great blues and boogie pianist. He always sounds like a pastiche and a pale imitation of the true greats.)

Admittedly there's been the odd great band and the odd great individual musician and singer on Jules' programmes down the years. Seasick Steve and Manu Chao stand out for me. The majority, however, have been cut-price rubbish like . . . Duffy.

Am I the only one who's noticed that  Duffy can't actually sing? It's a horrible weedy noise she makes - like the vast majority of Later's (and Hootenanny's) guests. It's all very well dishing up whatever's current and contemporary, on the basis that we should always support live music and whoever's out there performing - on the basis that something is better than nothing. But Jules likes to pretend that whoever comes on his show is brilliant, superb, wonderful and fabulous. NO they are fucking NOT. Just let them play and sing, and let Jules say thank you for coming. No need to pretend they are anything more than humdrum, at best. Otherwise you just devalue those who are truly something special.

Other annoying idiots

BBC3 has been showing a massive year-end compilation of Most Annoying People of 2010. Very good it is too.

Number 1 on the list is the entire England football squad. Good choice! They were more than annoying in South Africa, in the World Cup finals. They were appalling. They were horrible. They were shocking. They were shameful. They were unspeakable. They were an embarrassment.

The programme rightly called them inept pussies masquerading as English lions.

Theo Walcott was fortunate not to go to South Africa. Joe Harte was fortunate not to get a game.

Wayne Rooney was also high up the Most Annoying list in his own right. He's had an appalling year. He's totally lost it. Today he finally scored a goal for Man U from open play - his first since last Spring. Incredible! His efforts for England these days totally suck. SUCK.

Others high up the Most Annoying list were the usual suspects - Paris Hilton, who had the piss well and truly taken out of her, Tony BP Hayward, Michael Ryanair O'Leary, Sarah and Bristol (Bristol!) Palin, Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Jedward, Linsey Li-Lo Lohan, and - ta da! - Tony Blair.

Someone new to me was Janice Dickinson . This is an interesting phenomenon - a woman over the age of 60 whose celebrity seems to stem from the fact that she likes to flash her knickers and her knockers and her arse in public, especially if photographers are around. Maybe her message is a good one - that women who are normally considered beyond sex and sexuality owing to their age CAN in fact still be libidinous and sexually active, if not attractive. Which she isn't. But is this a good way of changing perceptions? Or does she just come over as an extremely sad, mad, bad and possibly dangerous head case?

Someone else I've never heard of was called Daffy (Dappy?). It seems he 'raps' in a group called N-Dubz (?). This guy is certifiable, with his ridiculous voice, his daft speech affectation, his twattish spiel, and his ludicrous hats.

Why was I unsurprised to learn that Ed Balls had chosen 'Daffy' as an anti-bullying 'ambassador'? Or unsurprised that shortly after being chosen, this 'Daffy' was caught out sending death threats by text? Well done, Daffy, and good riddance, Ed. Another very annoying and somewhat ludicrous individual. Another ego on stilts.

http://leisurehive.informe.com/n-dubs-daffy-sends-death-threats-dt2226.html

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Back on the football front, a man I'm starting to really appreciate is WBA's Roberto Di Matteo. This is some guy. He speaks excellent, idiomatic, comprehensible English, and he talks great sense, even after games in which his team has lost, which they unluckily did to Man U today. A good man. Pity you can't say similar things about the majority of the Premiership managers - even the native English speakers. Though  I do like the way Harry Rednapp handles himself and his team. Gareth Bale continues to play unbelievably well, and is still scoring brilliant goals. Spurs are now in the top four. Chelsea's slide continues.

It's very surprising that Man U still top the table, given how poorly they, and Rooney, have been playing. Their midfield today was crap - Fletcher, Carrick, Anderson and the truly ugly guy whom Ferguson seems determined to persist with - whatsisname. Obertan! Also, Neville G was diabolical today. And he's the MOST unattractive player in the entire league, and possibly the entire country. Why on earth hasn't he hung up his boots? Neville - you're fired!

Another of the real uggs is Carlos Tevez. Today he missed half a dozen sitters, and EVEN missed a penalty kick - hitting the ball well wide.

I just hope Bale stays at Spurs. He's SUCH an exciting player. Just for once I'd like someone of his calibre to resist offers of huge paypackets at one of the really wealthy clubs and just say - No thanks; I'm already earning ludicrous amounts, and I'd rather stay with my mates at a club where I'm happy and I get to play every week.

It's good to see Arsenal keeping up their run for the title. This year, because of the dips at Man U and Chelsea, and because of the maturation of their own players, I really think they can win it. They, and Wenger, deserve it.
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Layer 342 . . . Cambridge, the Ebb Tide, the Great Wave, Art, Education, Suicide, Apprenticeships and Arsenal

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And so to Cambridge. Such a strange town. So historic and academic, and yet so twee. So busy, and yet so boring.

The worst thing about Cambridge is the lack of pubs. Almost a complete lack of pubs. Why?

If you persevere in tramping around the whole of the town centre you might eventually come across a fine looking pub with a sign outside it advertising the fact that the local newspaper reckons it's the best pub in Cambridge. When you go inside, however, you notice a good range of real ales BUT ALSO very poor ventilation, a lingering stink of cooking, and horrible loud music. At which point, if you have any sense, you walk out. The Mitre truly sucks. Pity poor Cambridge if that's the best of its pubs.

Fortunately there's an excellent tapas bar nearby, with a decent, spacious interior and excellent welcoming staff. The food is good too, and they served the best draught Peroni I've ever tasted, which means it's very good indeed.

Apparently La Tasca is a nationwide chain. I really must get out more.

http://www.latasca.co.uk/cambridge/gallery/1851
http://www.latasca.co.uk/cambridge/gallery/1846

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The Fitzwilliam Museum's not really my kind of place, but it had one exhibition in just one smallish room that was totally wonderful - "Gifts of the Ebb Tide: Japan and the Sea in Ukiyo-e Prints."

The only print on show which was on loan from elsewhere was the famous Great Wave by Hokusai, which belongs to the British Museum. It's an image that draws you back to it constantly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai

The rest of the prints in the exhibition were owned by the Fitzwilliam museum - the majority of them being prints by Hiroshige. Pretty amazing they are too.

http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=hiroshige&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=g7ttTLroKdO6jAe-q9n7CA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQsAQwAA&biw=1440&bih=625

It's interesting that Monet, reckoned by many to be France's greatest-ever artist, chose to fill his house in Giverney with Japanese prints, and literally nothing else in the way of art. Can't have a much higher recommendation than that.

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It's 'A' level results time and university clearing time, and almost back to school time.

I'm starting to think that there are two kinds of  people in this country. Those who give a damn about real education and its benefits, and those who don't. Those who realise that our education system isn't fit for purpose, and those who don't.

Then there's a sub category of people who realise that our education system sucks but haven't much of a clue what to do about it. There's a further sub category of people who think they have a clue or two, but haven't really.

This means that the number of people who a) care about education, and b) truly understand what needs to happen to it in order to improve it and make the system fit for the 21st Century, amounts to less than 0.001% of the population, at most.

Sadly none of them are politicians or journalists - the people who are elected to make decisions on behalf of we, the people, and those who are paid to write opinions which are then broadcast through the media in order to influence 'public opinion'. No wonder we're a nation of over-examined and under-educated fuckwits.

In the Guardian recently we find Priyamvada Gopal, who teaches postcolonial studies at Cambridge University, apparently, who says,

University mustn't again be the rich's hereditary domain

Corralling the young into vocational factory farms or apprenticeships splits further the educated elite from those who service it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/19/university-education-is-a-right-for-all

"Restricting access to higher education, in conjunction with vicious attacks on the support base of schools, wages and housing, only accelerates the drive towards absolute economic segregation.

A mature democracy thrives by widening access to higher education. Corralling young people into vocational factory farms does not equal progress. Life is not a television show where gruff millionaires airily dismiss formal education and magically transform eager young things into corporate high-flyers. What is masquerading as the good old-fashioned common sense of apprenticeships and skills over higher education is really the politics of dismissing the intelligence and abilities of ordinary people. We must fight hard to retain common ownership of education and have a real discussion about the role we want it to play in our lives and society."

Common ownership? What kind of a fantasy land is she living in? Our education system is directed by, managed by and constrained by a small number of politicians, bureaucrats and professionals who are UTTERLY CONVINCED that our education system, (which is mainly geared up to creating elites through examinations, and a system through which those so-called elites did very well themselves) is still for the best in the best of all worlds.

To imagine that regular people have any stake in our education system, let alone 'ownership', is pure fantasy. Nobody, but nobody, does well out of an education system that is 99% geared up for so-called 'academic' excellence and ignores the development of other intelligences as well as the need for critical thinking, creativity and use of the imagination. I may have said this somewhere before.

The system doesn't even help young people learn how to become autonomous learners - they need to find that out for themselves. As for developing a love of learning for its own sake . . .

"We must fight hard to . . . have a real discussion about the role we want [education] to play in our lives and society."

Who's involved in that fight then? It seems we have to fight hard to even have a discussion about real education. As for actually doing anything about it . . .

The Cambridge Review of Primary education has been and gone, and how many people even noticed its publication? It's pathetic. Practically nobody cares about the real learning needs of children and young people, or has any idea what they might be, or any idea about how schools (academies!), colleges and universities should go about meeting those needs.

We don't need education to "play a role" in 'our' lives and 'our' society. Whose society would that be, then?

 We need education to meet the real learning needs of people of all ages, actually, and to help with the development of all of our intelligences - not just the academic and the intellectual. We need education to help our people to find out who they really are, and to discover a personal pathway towards greater enlightenment and a proper way to live their lives. Naturally this would involve changing a great many things in our society - things that conservatives, including New Labour, including the majority of the bourgeoisie for that matter, are desperate to 'conserve'.

A few comments from CIF:

Tybo

The problem is class based. Because the Universities in the UK were associated as much with class privilige as with academic excellence, people without degrees were looked down on and not accorded the respect that they should have been.

That is an ongoing problem. But the answer is not to make everyone do dumbed down degrees. The answer is to raise the status and respect we have for people who achieve things outside of university and academia.

KingCnutCase

Countries such as Germany and South Korera manage to run thriving apprenticeship systems without tying themselves into paroxysms of progressive angst about the 'fairness' of university education vs vocational education.

They don't stuff 3rd rate educational establishments to the gills with gullible teenagers on debt-funded media studies and golf course management courses. They put people on proper vocational courses that lead to decent, well paid jobs in proper trades.

But it's ok 'cos our economy is so much more successful than theirs isnt it? Oh, hang on....

Bluejil

The whole of the system needs changing, starting at the primary level and with a curriculum that meets the needs of a 21st century society. Sadly, I do not see a vision of modern, viable education in the current government, but they sure will feel the affects of their delusions in ten, twenty years time when a great deal of the population is uneducated and unskilled and unable to find employment anywhere on the planet.

More from Tybo

I did mostly arts oriented things (very mixed at Keele) but what shocked me was that whilst my [non-university] squatting mates in Norwich were avidly reading Kerouac and Ken Keysey, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Braughtigen, when I did an American Studies class nobody else had read any American writers at all. Not a single fellow student.

The tutor treated me like I was Christ reborn - it was such a shock to him to find a student studying American literature who was actually interested in it.

95% of the students had not read a book since whatever they had been set for their A level English. They were there because going there was what you did to get a better job. Not because they had a scintilla of interest in what they were studying.

I hate to think what it must be like now.

Phoenixflabskin

As a number of posters have already noted, the fundamental problem is silly middle-class left-wing snobs like the author. The upper ranks of the Labour Party, and newspapers like this, seem to be stuffed with them.

Unwilling to countenance the idea that their own precious ones might not get a 'proper professional career', they then have to assuage their left-wing guilt by making sure that all the poor 'working-class' people have the same 'opportunity'. So you end up with an army of people with little or no academic inclination earning honours degrees in Sociology of Batwoman and Lesbotic Yoga from the University of Bootle, and if they're lucky and they know the right people ending up as Transgender Awareness Seminar Facilitators for the local council, or if they're not lucky end up on the dole with a mountain of debt, while proper useful jobs like sparks and plumbing get done by immigrants.

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An article by Julia Margo had the title "Learning New Ropes" in the newspaper, but on the website appeared as:

A way out of the mancession

A-levels and university are no guarantee of a job. Particularly for men, an apprenticeship is better

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/19/apprenticeship-unemployment-gender-gap

Some time ago a friend who had lost his City job confessed he had considered killing himself. I was appalled but not surprised: while men are being hit harder by the recession than women they are also seem to be showing less resilience in dealing with unemployment and economic insecurity.

[How the hell do we expect people to be personally & emotionally resilient when they've never had much of an opportunity to find out who they are, or develop much in the way of personal, emotional and spiritual intelligence?]

Academic qualifications appear to offer them little protection against unemployment . . .

Research by Mind has shown that up to one in seven men who become unemployed will develop a depressive illness within six months; two-thirds of men under 35 were out of work when they killed themselves.

This trend alone is enough for some to claim that a "crisis of masculinity" is on the horizon. But suggestions of a deeper, potentially seismic shift in our society should make politicians sit up and listen.

The emerging knowledge economy demands a new, softer skill set – empathy, sociability, confidence, resourcefulness. Women are perceived as being better at soft skills, and now they count for more. In the course of just over a decade, Demos research found, these skills became central to life chances: for those who turned 30 in 2000, such character capabilities had become 33 times more important in determining earnings.

[Softer?!! For 'character capabilities' read personal, social, emotional and spiritual intelligences.]

But character can't be taught in the classroom.

[No it can't - which is to say that you cannot learn "character" in the way you can be didactically taught maths and science - not that those things are best taught didactically anyway. However, classrooms ARE the best places for developing "character" - those other intelligences - providing teachers know what to do and how to organise learning so as to facilitate those sorts of essential development.]

If this issue in the classroom isn't addressed, boys, with a skill set that seems to become less valued by the day, will continue on the path to asbos rather than A-levels.

So what can be done? Interestingly there may be a genuine solution. Demos research shows that boys and young men can substantially boost employability, income and wellbeing by doing apprenticeships from age 16 instead of, or as well as, A-levels.

[So that's alright then - we can start work on 'developing character' from the age of 16, or as soon as young people move beyond GCSE.]

Boys who took apprenticeships were more confident, happy and skilled by the time they were 30 than their non-apprentice contemporaries.

Society needs to get over this obsession with A-levels as the gold standard if we want to give boys the chance to succeed in this new job environment. Rigging A-levels won't help. They need training to help them operate in the workplace, not qualifications that prepare them to fail.

[She calls it 'training'. Like you do with dogs. Especially dogs who "operate in the workplace", presumably.]

So here's someone who sees at least part of the problem, but in spite of her very privileged position as acting director of Demos - the leading so-called left wing so-called think tank - and presumably the 'beneficiary' of an 'elite' education herself - has very little clue about how to frame the problem adequately, let alone any real idea about how to transform our attitude and our approach to education from the Nursery onwards in order to make it fit for purpose.

Just another example of how far we have to go in order to promote any real change in how we do things on this island.

Julia - you're fired!

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Football Matters

Interesting news this week that Arsenal have decided to work with their supporters to encourage fans to buy part-shares and so gradually move the club towards becoming a supporter-owned community club, similar to Barcelona and Real Madrid, and most of the German clubs.

Arsenal step back from era of rich owners and offer fans a voice

• Club's approach is enlightened compared with debt-laden rivals
• What is the social value of the beautiful game?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/aug/18/arsenal-kroenke-usmanov-owners-fanshare

Arsenal  supporters will be invited today to buy shares in their club in affordable slices of the £10,250, which is the current prohibitive price of just one. The Arsenal Supporters Trust hopes that its scheme, Arsenal Fanshare, five years in the planning, will enable supporters to slowly build a meaningful stake and voice, and help preserve Arsenal as the only major Premier League club not owned by a single rich individual.

"Custodianship" is the trust's cherished theme; the principle that a football club exists for its supporters, not for speculators to exploit by buying up shares. Arsenal Fanshare allows ordinary supporters to make monthly contributions, from a minimum of £10 to a maximum £1,000, which will be pooled towards buying shares when they become available.

Remarkably, Arsenal Fanshare is enthusiastically backed by the club itself, as a means of encouraging fans to be participate and be "engaged", which is emerging as a core principle at Arsenal and the more enlightened professional clubs. The contrast with the open warfare between fans and absolute owners at debt-laden Manchester United and Liverpool could hardly be more marked.

"In the club's relationship with supporters, the important thing is that fans are valued and nurtured, not exploited," Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal's chief executive, says. "That's not only good for the club's soul; it is also ultimately good for the club overall, because engagement with our fans helps us to be healthier, more vibrant and successful."

"The aim is to increase supporter ownership and influence," Tim Payton, the spokesman for the trust, says. "The vast majority of our members and, we believe, most Arsenal fans, favour supporter involvement in the club and have no appetite for private ownership by a single individual, and certainly not for excessive debt. This is an opportunity for supporters to gain a voice, for a relatively modest contribution, and it should be a model for other clubs too."

Had the idea of mutual, democratic ownership been conceived, and the iconic examples of supporter-owned Barcelona and the Bundesliga clubs been understood 30 years ago, before the Premier League's pay-TV and commercial revolution, fans clubbing together might have had a chance of buying their clubs outright, even one as distinguished as Arsenal.

Arsenal offer 'fanshares' to dampen fears of takeover

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/18/arsenal-shares-fanshare-supporters-trust

The sports minister, Hugh Robertson, told the Guardian yesterday: "This proposal at Arsenal is enlightened and forward-looking. Clearly it is for individual clubs to decide, but this is a model I'd like to see other teams explore."

Arsenal hail new model of top-flight club ownership

• Campaign for democratic involvement led by Supporters Direct

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/18/arsenal-new-model-club-ownership

Previous comments about Arsenal here:

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2010/02/layer-257-philosophy-and-economics-of.html

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Layer 257 . . . The Philosophy and Economics of Football; Arsenal and Emotional Intelligence

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Yesterday Arsenal closed the gap to 3 points from Premiership leaders Chelsea, and 2 points from Man Utd.  All three have played 28 games. Arsene Wenger said some time ago that he thought Arsenal could still win the Premiership this season. Do I give a damn? Yes - slightly.

I read somewhere this week that England's Premier League clubs have more debt than the rest of Europe's clubs put together.

Portsmouth FC were officially declared bankrupt this week.

We've had fake sheiks, fake billionaires and people like the Glazers who somehow managed to buy a prestigeous club by borrowing loadsa cheap money and then making the club itself liable for its repayment. This is all bullshit. I hate the Premier League, and the people who run it.

It's a vile state of affairs. In Germany, for example, clubs are still owned by the supporters, as are Barcelona and Madrid. The cost of tickets is such that the children of less well off families can still afford to go to matches, and in fact buy season tickets without too much sacrifice. Does this matter? Yes it bloody does. I don't really care too much about prawn sandwich eaters going to matches, just as long as the pie and chips eaters can also still afford to go. In other countries they don't, generally, pay players insane amounts of money, and they don't generally buy them for ridiculous amounts.

The Premiership stopped being interesting at the point where the richest clubs bought up all the best players, and were themselves bought up by fat cat billionaires. Yes - there have been exciting matches, and incredible levels of individual skill - but so what? Who cares apart from the hard core supporters?

What neutrals want to see is clubs nurturing their own talent, not borrowing massive amounts of money in order to snaffle up the established stars. Personally I hate seeing the so-called Championship clubs being denuded of the talent they've raised themselves - enticed away by the bribes that are successfully offered by the biggest clubs, or even the moderately big clubs, in the Premiership.

Arsene Wenger has been castigated by so-called afficionados of the game for refusing to give up on his youth policy and for insisting that the young players he's trained and raised himself should be allowed to play in the first team. Most people laughed when he said his team could still come top. Well they're not laughing now. Chelsea and Man Utd must be crapping themselves.

What's more, Arsenal have done so well in spite of having key players like Van Persie and Walcott out with long-term injuries.

The thing I really like about Arsenal, though, is Wenger's philosophy of the game.

On the Internet coachkev wrote this:

"Arsenal uses a 4-4-2 system. Wenger is constantly working to refine this system on the levels of both group and team tactics.

The team's defence is very attack-oriented. They attack their opponents early with a midfield press that alternates between a diamond formation and a back four. This tactic represents a calculated risk that the coach and his players are willing to accept (since most of the players are English and French, they have been playing without a sweeper since they were children).

Wenger demands aggressive, ball-oriented defence from his players and cultivates it with lots of practice games in tight spaces. When Arsenal gets the ball, its attack is very forward-focused. Square passes and runs parallel to the endline are to be avoided.

However, contrary to the "typical English" playing style, Arsenal relies mainly on short passes in the opposition's half - until they get close to the goal, where every player is encouraged to take risks and go for the goal with confidence and determination. Errors are allowed, but playing carelessly and losing the ball is forbidden.

Wenger places special emphasis on communication within the team. Every exercise is accompanied by shouts and commands that are loud and clear - aggressively so, if the situation requires it - and successful plays are greeted with cheers and applause. Players are expected to be actively engaged with one another and to cooperate in building team spirit, morale and enthusiasm for the Arsenal style."

"Actively engaged with one another." "Spirit". "Cooperate". "High morale". "Enthusiasm." All words  and concepts associated with emotional, interpersonal and spiritual intelligence.


Alex Thistlewood wrote this:

The club has become a preeminent destination for talented youth the world wide, and has established a footballing ethos the envy of every team in Europe but Barcelona. Arsenal is a club unique in their philosophy of bringing along a cadre of players who grow up together and want to win for each other, prizing an attacking style, while competing at such a high level. It’s an almost unprecedented venture in modern football. In terms of finances and talent, Arsenal is better positioned for the future than any other club in the League, and perhaps Europe.

Chelsea have been inconsistent this season, and I'm sick of reading about the antics of John "The Penalty" Terry, who's crap this season, and Ashley "Text Sex" Cole. Lampard's generally been off colour. Cech had a very poor start to the season and is now injured. Joe Cole hasn't regained his former brilliance. The replacement goalkeeper's called Hilarious. Balack must surely be ditched soon. I feel sorry for Drogba and Anelka, who've been superb. And who gave JT his tragic haircut? Vanessa Perroncel? Has he looked in a mirror?

As for Man Utd - they've had lots of injuries to their defenders, and have done very well in spite of that. But they're also inconsistent. Their defence has been pretty crap. I feel sorry for Rooney, who's been brilliant all through the season, and has really grown up this season. I hope he gets the player of the year award.

On Match of the Day just now even Alan Hansen said he's becoming an Arsenal supporter. They're a team that's greater than the sum of their individual parts. Man City did them a huge favour today by humiliating Chelsea 2 - 4. It has to be Arsenal's season. What a story that would be.

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"Polymath James Riordan can list Professor of Russian Studies, international children's author, translator, Radio 4 broadcaster, editor, sports historian, sports coach and Moscow Spartak footballer as just some of his hats.

One of his aims at Worcester is to combine work in both sport and children's literature, cooperating with the Children's Literature, Literacy and Creativity Reseach Centre and the School of Sport and Exercise Science."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Riordan

Jim Riordan has watched Portsmouth for 66 years but has seen them wrecked in just a few seasons.

Pompey embodies the passion, hopes and companionship of a working-class community and the fans will not let their club die

by Jim Riordan

My Pompey are going to rack and ruin. The club are so deep in debt through mismanagement that they have had to sell everything saleable, from the 112-year-old stadium to half-decent players. Today, administration. Tomorrow, oblivion?

As one of the oldest fans (I saw my first game at Fratton Park in 1944: having first pick on servicemen such as Ted Drake, we won 9-1 against Crystal Palace), I'm lucky. I witnessed the double-championship years of 1949-50 when Portsmouth were probably the best team in the world. I followed the club from First to Fourth Division and back, then down again under Alan Ball. Less than two years ago I "lived the dream" of winning the FA Cup. But that dream turned into a nightmare. Who is to blame?

The oligarch who cut off all funds? The chief executive who paid himself an alleged £1.4m a year, which we couldn't afford? The manager who asked for more, and more, and more?

Or are the Premier League and FA responsible? In their rush to rake in the millions that TV brings, they have perhaps turned a blind eye to what has been happening at our club. Dick Turpin would be more fit and proper than some of Pompey's recent board members.

A football club is far more than those that run and ruin it. The club represent the community, thousands upon thousands of fans throughout the world. Like virtually no other club, Pompey embodies the passion, hopes and companionship of a tight-knit, working-class community that regards the club as theirs. In desperation, these real fans sing "Portsmouth till I die!" and "Please don't take my Portsmouth away". So when the FA does FA for FA (Fans Always), remember that we will not let our club die.

These are not empty words. Fans have formed the Pompey Supporters Trust to bring together fan groups from up and down the country and try to gain a voice and an ear. Such is the eagerness to help that in less than three months the trust has gained well over a thousand members (at £5 a time) and generous financial support from all over the world, especially Australia and North America. It has its own bank account and website. Trust members are more than willing to take part in talks about the future of our club. But we have also drawn up our own Plan B for forming a new club if things go pear-shaped in administration. This has involved negotiations with local football clubs, coaches, builders etc. And agreement on a ground share with a local club, Havant & Waterlooville, increasing ground capacity to accommodate an estimated 8,000 core support from Pompey.

The new club would recruit players from academy and Football League cast-offs, and a manager with extensive local knowledge. If that means starting out again in, say, Conference South, so be it. At least the club would be run by and for real Pompey fans. I may not see top-class football again in my lifetime. But I'd like my children and grandchildren to have the chance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/feb/26/portsmouth-football-club-future

Comrade Jim
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/31/comrade-jim-riordan

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Barney Ronay is one of the Guardian's best writers.

Do the press want a World Cup disaster?

Thanks to John Terry we have a narrative for England's World Cup failure, with a villain, sex and a tempting notion of hubris

This week brought the World Cup abdication of Wayne Bridge, who has decided his position in the England squad is "untenable", a brilliantly grave and high-minded use of a word you might more normally associate with elite public office rather than sitting next to Aaron Lennon on a coach and occasionally standing up to do some special jumping on the touchline. It's a shame for Bridge. As a quite-good left-back he will be a loss. On a personal note I'll miss him because he's part of a dwindling band of sportsmen who resemble the kind of skinny, beaky, moist-eyed, old-fashioned 1970s-style youths you might have seen shouting something out of the window on the top deck of a bus, or hanging around near some swings in 1981.

My first thought was that this is not the right move for Bridge. You should always go to the party. Get out there. Even though you know it's going to be painful and you're going to spend the whole evening "being fabulous" in a slightly hysterical way, laughing too loudly and ultimately making an exhibition of yourself on the dancefloor by appearing to be too into the lyrics of I Will Survive. It's still much better than spending June on the sofa eating Galaxy and watching Midsomer Murders through a haze of tears and snot.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect has been a swell of support – including one entire radio show devoted to the subject – for the idea that the Bridge/Terry affair is part of a conspiracy by The Press to stop England winning the World Cup.

One theory is that The Press can't help it. They're like a veteran indie band called Stumbledork or Deathfinger or Bogusfringe. They only know one song: and it's a really depressing one (whereas I imagine in Germany the press are more like a triumphant old-school hair metal franchise, all fist-pumping spandex positivity).

The point is that The Press have only two stories here: England win the World Cup or England don't win the World Cup. One of these is a lot more likely, and so The Press is already diligently turning it into a coherent story, with a villain, some sex and a tempting notion of hubris. The Press now has a narrative for failure. We have a story arc, even if it's the same one – debauchery, decadence, pitfalls of celebrity – as last time around.

It's also worth noting there really is no such thing as The Press, no brotherhood of red-faced, sherry-stinking men and women gleefully tossing Wayne Bridge's roughly scissored scalp about like an office stress ball. There are just individual red-faced, sherry-stained men and women, jammed together out of necessity. The England team itself is like a vast, creaking, timber-lashed raft of the Medusa, with its own laptop-clutching parasite crew scattered across its back, huddling, fighting, building tiny shelters, hacking bits off, carving their initials and generally servicing their own petty short-term needs.

England won't win the World Cup, because other countries have better players. And when they don't it's all going to be about Terry. This is the only story left now: The Man Who Shagged Away The World Cup. From a purely press angle Bridge has carried out a passive-aggressive act of self-immolation, a World Cup suicide bombing. It's quite clever really.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/feb/27/wayne-bridge-world-cup-press-conspiracy

Horribledisturbingmentalimagegate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/03/the-fiver-john-terry

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/nov/02/premier-league-ledley-king-tottenham

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/barneyronay

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Owen Gibson wrote this in The Guardian:

Curious Links In A Twisted Chain of Ownership

When Sacha Gaydamak bought a 50% stake in Portsmouth from Milan Mandaric in 2006 he set in train a complex sequence of events that ended yesterday with the formal announcement that it had become the first Premier League club to go into administration.

Throughout his tenure there were questions about whether he was merely acting as a front man for his billionaire father Arkady, who was convicted in his absence in France last year on charges of illegal arms trading and sentenced to six years in prison. He fled to Moscow.

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by David Conn

Portsmouth's collapse must prompt football to examine itself

The Premier League rejects the idea that this is a major embarrassment that should prompt a bout of soul-searching. Portsmouth's collapse is due to rank bad management and overspending, they say. That is true, and it is the administrator's job to decide whether the problem results from even worse practices than that. But as far as we know, Portsmouth did nothing against any rules; they followed the accepted Premier League model for a club – overspending, beyond the club's true means, financed by loans from an owner and banks.

Portsmouth's core problem at the end of Sacha Gaydamak's ownership last summer was that he, who had passed the fit and proper person test and satisfied the league he owned the club rather than his father, the now convicted gun-runner Arkadi Gaydamak, had become simply not rich enough. Then the overspending became unsupportable and Pompey, three owners later, have collapsed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/feb/26/portsmouth-administration-premier-league

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Stoke City announce they are debt-free

Stoke City have announced that they are externally debt-free on the day that Portsmouth went into administration.

Figures announced for the year 2008-09, the club's first season in the Premier League, show the Potters made a net profit of £503,000 at the end of the last trading year, after transfers, and had an increased turnover of £54m – up from £11m in their last season in the Championship.

Stoke's manager Tony Pulis, who counts Portsmouth among his former clubs, said: "This is a great testament to the Coates family, who have put so much into the club.

"The chairman, Peter Coates, has been a fan since his boyhood and he knows this club inside out. He and his family have put so much into the club.

"This is a family club, run for the fans, and by local people. There should be an inquiry into how Portsmouth has been run."

The Coates family have already invested £17m, interest free, and plan to inject another £24m. Pulis said: "It must be unique for a club like us to be free of external debt, and that underlines how indebted we are to the Coates family.

"The most important thing about this club is that it stays in existence, and we have had success on the pitch to match the investment."

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Arsenal announce £35.2m profits and slash club debt

Arsenal have announced that they have slashed their debts by over £100m after making pre-tax profits of £35.2m for the six months ending 30 November, 2009.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/26/arsenal-financial-figures

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/audio/2010/jan/13/manchester-united-debt-glazers

Manchester United fans prepare to show their true colours at Wembley

http://www.bcst.co.uk/aggregator/sources/104
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Layer 9 Relocation

There was a man on the radio, a detainee in a camp in Slovakia, being interviewed about his desire to get to London to start a new life. He was a Somali, and he’s spent every penny he’d managed to save or steal, every last penny he’d begged or borrowed, on his long and hazardous journey from Somalia to Europe, only to end up behind the wire of this god-forsaken refugee camp on the very fringes of the mighty European Union. He had no idea where he was. Austrians to the left of him, Ukranians to the right. Hungarians to the south, Czechs & Poles to the north.

He’d decided one day that he needed to move on from Somalia. He couldn’t really figure out a life plan any more in Mogadishu. The life expectancy there for guys like him is probably about 25. So he’d decided to make his way to London, undeterred by the fact that he spoke no English and didn’t have too many recognised qualifications. Just a bit of work experience on Kalashnikov AK 47s and other bits of choice ordnance from the local arsenal, maybe. Probably had quite a good reference from the local warlord. “One of the best fighters in our team. Ruthless and Fearless. Great at looting, pillaging and hostage taking. We would definitely employ him again.”

He’d maybe had a friend who’d actually made it all the way to London, who was living somewhere in, say, Peckham, or Tower Hamlets. Maybe his friend, or brother, or cousin, had written to him, sent him a postcard. “Having a great time. Streets paved with gold and doggy doos. Wish you were here.” Maybe he’d had a phone call.

The BBC reporter asked him why he’d risked everything and paid so much money to traffickers in this desperate and fruitless attempt to get to London. Through the translator he said he knew that London was a very beautiful city, and the most important thing for him was - that he was an Arsenal supporter.

Now that’s what really got him out of bed in the morning, got his juices flowing. No matter that the cost of admission to see the Gunners kicking a ball around their pitch is probably more than the average Somali earns in a month or more - he needed to be close to the action. He had a passion, and he was on his way to living the good life - the closer to Highbury, to the Emirates Stadium, the better.

At the very least he’d be able to stand in the local pub, possibly in Highbury, one of those places down by Finsbury Park station maybe, in his red and white hat, pint of non-alcoholic lager in hand, yelling at the TV screen along with the rest of his adopted (albeit excluded from the actual stadium on account of having no tickets for admission) tribe. Now that’s what I call getting a life. Though that’s presumably pretty much what he used to do in Somalia - hang out in bars watching football on satellite TV.

This got me thinking about where I’d move to in order to find a better life. Slovakia, perhaps. Its capital, Bratislava, is a wonderful and very beautiful city, architecturally and culturally rich. Not too big. Not overcrowded. Lots of stunningly beautiful people. The cost of living is less than half that of London. Great climate. Easy access to lovely countryside: lakes, mountains, the River Danube. A short train journey to Vienna, and Budapest. Of course you’re not likely to get rich in Slovakia, but you can BE rich, in terms of lifestyle and culture and friendships with lovely people. As long as you not craving a regular 90 minutes of football at Arsenal.

Alternatively I might choose Paris. “It’s a very beautiful city, and I love the museums and art galleries. And French cuisine.” Why not? Paris has everything a city ought to have. Great transport system. Or you can walk for miles on interesting streets, along the Seine, through the parks. And it’s cheaper to live there than in London, where the cost of a hotel room, for instance, is scandalous. It has easy access to Normandy, Provence, the Dordogne, the Massif Central and the Auverne. What more could you want in order to live a civilised and enjoyable life? Arsenal?

The things that shape our destiny are worth thinking about. The key decisions that can make or ruin a life. Decisive action versus inertia. Giving one’s life some real purpose and meaning, quality and enjoyment. Not taking life for granted. We have the ability to enjoy life wherever we may find ourselves living, provided we can actually stay alive, provided we’re not engaged in a life or death struggle for existence. Provided we’re satisfying all our basic needs, as in Maslow’s pyramid. I wonder whether watching Arsenal is basic, or whether it’s higher order, more of a spiritual thing?

Recently my friend K was out on the streets of Peckham in her role as education welfare officer, looking for truants, with her police officer colleague, of West African descent, and her community warden colleague, a Bangladeshi. They came across a thirteen year old girl of Somali background, a very tough nut, who’d spent the previous night in the house of another girl she’d only just met, buying weed. They checked her out and found that she was effectively a runaway.

She was enormously resentful that she was being picked up in Peckham, whereas her own borough, Croydon, evidently didn’t give a damn about kids being out of school when they should be in one. (The burger joint where the encounter took place was enormously resentful of the fact that none of the locals felt like coming into the place to buy burgers whilst a uniformed police officer was present.)

Finally she says to K - “Look, right. I hope none of my gang sees you wiv me ‘cos they ain’t gonna be real happy about it and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.” So they asked her how many individuals were in her gang, and she told them about 100. So the police officer pointed to his Met badge and said, “Listen little Miss. There’s about 25,000 in my gang, and we’ve got guns that are a LOT bigger than yours!”

* * * * * * * * * *

I made up that bit about the guy in the camp in Slovakia not having any qualifications. I’ve no idea whether he had or not. More likely he was able to pay for his journey to Europe on account of having been a professional or a businessman of some sort. He was probably a very able and very hard-working individual, given half a chance. And a genuine refugee, who had fled in fear of losing his life, having seen lots of family and friends lose theirs. But we, in spite of having a net population loss here due to death and emigration, we no longer have room for refugees aka economic migrants, do we? Do we?

And we, the rich world, are not prepared to provide money and resources that will enable the “wretched of the earth”, as Franz Fanon called them, to escape extreme poverty and danger and remain in their own country. It’s no wonder they want to leave their own countries to seek a better quality of life elsewhere, to seek security and safety. Whether or not they’re Arsenal fans.

Which of us wouldn’t want to move elsewhere if our families and our kids were suffering and we had no prospects of things getting better? Would we not feel a duty to them to become refugees? So why don’t we, the developed world, the fat cat disgustingly rich world, do something about the whole wretched situation? Remember this - the USA spends in two weeks in Iraq an amount of money that would eliminate illiteracy around the world. What are we going to do? Build bigger walls and fences, and employ more border patrols?

And I wonder what the guy in the camp is doing right now.