Eye on the Ball

I've got a lot of time for Private Eye magazine. Despite the tone at times verging into an air of Public School smugness, it can often produce some excellent examples of journalism. The recent articles about the horrific conditions at some care homes for the elderly and about the appalling treatment of Hillingdon council towards Mark Neary and his autistic son Steven reassured me that the art of investigative journalism isn't completely dead.

However, they at times fall on their faces when they dabble with pop culture. In the most recent edition, mention is made of William H. Macy being interviewed on Radio 4 regarding his role in the US version of Shameless. Talking of the differences of UK/US contracts (in the States, actors tend to sign up for huge long-term deals), Macy says "You've got to sign the actors up... You can't have them falling in love with each other and leaving the show."

The Eye responds with "If Macy has any evidence that such things happen in British television, he should produce it forthwith."

Now, perhaps I'm missing some in-joke here, but one example that springs to mind is of James McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff. Meeting on the set of a Brit TV show, they subsequently fell in love, got it together and moved on from the programme to pastures new. Very successful ones too, especially in Slim Jim Xavier's case. The show they met on? Shameless. Strange, that.

Comeback

Back in the world of writing crap on a blog, given I've managed to land myself in some half-decent temporary accommodation (and many thanks to Mark, Cathy, Helen and Mrs A for putting us up while I sorted it out), I've been allowed time to get irritated by a couple of things.

a) Booking fees. The great scam of the 21st Century, I reckon. On seeing Chameleons Vox were playing the Ruby Lounge in August, I decided two tickets would be in order. Rather than go through those nasty websites, I trooped down to a certain record store in Manchester. After waiting for about ten minutes while the world's slowest store clerks dealt with a couple of people, I was handed what I wanted: £12 each, but with a booking fee slapped on.

It just really, really fucks me off. Why not just make the ticket £2.50 or whatever more expensive. And what is this fee for? I didn't *book* anything: I went to a shop and paid. Hardly deserving of a couple of quid labour costs, I reckon.

b) People driving like fuckwits on a Motorway. During my short spell of quasi-homelessness, I was commuting from Chester to Manchester, going up and down the M56. What this reminded of was that about 90% of drivers on Britain's roads should have their cars impounded immediately and be banned from driving until they prove themselves capable of not acting like their brain was removed at dawn. It's my belief that the vast majority of congestion on our roads is caused by people not being able to drive properly. Arseholes.

There's probably a lot more, but that's enough spleen-venting for now. I recently found out I have very low blood pressure, which apparently is good for living a long and healthy live, so I don't want to get myself too annoyed and causing it to rise up.

Respite

This blog is going to have to take a break while I'm forced to sort some shit out. Essentially, I've been made temporary homeless due to a fire incident in my building. It's only the fact a fire engine was passing at the exact second one was needed that ensured I actually have any possessions to my name.

Two things before I head off to sort out where I'm going to live (outside the kindness of my friends) for the next few weeks/months:

a) Next time firefighters are campaigning for a pay rise, I'm on their side.

b) I saw the Wild Swans in both Manchester and Liverpool last week. To say they are sounding incredible is an understatement. The Ricky Maymi/Mike Mooney guitar team was in blistering form along with Les Pattinson on bass and the new songs sounded sublime, showing Paul Simpson is still in excellent writing fettle. I'm really looking forward to hearing the new album and will be sure to get a review on noripcord.com soon after I do.

For now, y'all take care and I'll be sure to be back to posting more inane bollocks as soon as possible.

Devil In The Details

I'm in a bit of a quandary. I used to be a huge player, addict even, of the Football Manager series (formerly known as Championship Manager until some business feud between the publishers and the developers) until my laptop got too old and crap to play the newer versions. However, now I have access to a modern PC and the lure of the old sweetheart is calling.

My problem is that I now actually have some vestiges of a life, which is always a hindrance to any Football Manager session, as "a quick game" can easily turn into a ten hour session spent painfully altering tactics to hopefully nullify another team's tricky left winger in a crunch cup tie. I'm not sure my friends and good lady would be very understanding of such antics.

The series have long been a part of my gaming life since 1993, when my brother and a couple of friends would engage in epic campaigns that would result in crucial grudge matches that would be talked about for weeks. Yes, pretty tragic for a bunch of teenagers perhaps, but when the alternative was to spend an evening stood around the bus shelter drinking piss labelled as cider, it seemed we had the better deal. After all, it wasn't like we could go out and play actual football, as it was always raining.

My brother managed the very impressive feat of taking the 1995 Blackburn team to a clean sweep of Premiership, FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League titles without losing a game all season. His signing of Uwe Rosler proved key when he went on to score over 70 goals. Stuff like that sticks in both of our memories - my best was a 17 game winning streak with a late 90s Wolves team, driven by Robbie Keane scoring about 20 in that run.

It's something you either get or don't. Love of football isn't a pre-requisite. I know plenty of fans who find it tedious beyond belief to spend hours staring at stats and figures on what is a glorified spreadsheet. Yet, as an admitted geek, it appeals to my love of detail.

So, I can't decide whether to allow myself to be sucked back in. But as my Playstation 3 has just decided to blow it's circuit board, I may have no choice but to submit. If you don't hear from me a while, I'll be querying whether taking a punt on Owen Hargreaves for a free transfer is worth the gamble...

Going Over The Edge

Back when I was a wee nipper, I quite fancied the idea of being a racing driver in Formula 1. I can't tell you why - it was probably soon after I figured out at the age of seven that I would never be good enough to play at Old Trafford.

The reasons this didn't happen are of course down to a total lack of talent. But there was also the facts that a) I'm probably a bit too much on the tall side to fit in a F1 car and b) I'm a complete coward when it comes to putting myself in danger.

Much as I'm loath to quote Jeremy Clarkson, he once noted that racing drivers are missing the part of the brain that stops us going beyond a certain point. It takes a certain kind of bravery/stupidity to drive at speeds where one tiny mistake can be fatal. And even if F1 is infinitely safer than it was 40 years ago, there remains that element of danger that other sports don't have.

Ayrton Senna was the last man to die on the F1 track back in 1994, an event I remember well. He was part of a generation of racers that I would watch that seemed full of personality and passion alongside Prost and Piquet. Senna tracks the life of the man using archive film and audio footage, with some new interviews lapping over the pictures.

We're given very little information about his childhood, getting straight to what we want to know about: the racing. Starting in karts, he moved up the grades before coming to world attention at a rain-soaked 1984 Monaco GP, which he was looking nailed on to win before a controversial decision to quit the race.

Alain Prost, the driver who was just holding on the lead at that point, is soon set up by the documentary as Senna's nemesis. Methodical behind the wheel and apt at playing the political games behind the scene compared to Senna being the more "pure" racer just wanting to be on the track, and aiming to be the best.

Which he became, earning his first title in 1988 to mass celebrations in his home country of Brazil. Fiercely patriotic, he was regarded as one of the few reasons for the nation to be happy in a time of much difficulty. He would proudly wave the flag at races and the reactions of the Brazilian commentator to his first world title shows how much it meant.

Alongside his love of his country, Senna's religious faith is shown to be deeply important to him when off the track, with him constantly thanking god for his talent and victories. But despite all this, the real attraction of Senna is the footage of the racing, with the on-board clips being particularly exciting. Watching it compared to modern racing, it seems so much more on-edge, perhaps due to the drivers still using a stick gearshift when doing corners at 100mph+.

Naturally, the Senna/Prost rivalry is an excellent framing device and it seems amazing in retrospect that the two didn't end up trading punches eventually. The two were probably the best drivers in the world in the late 80s, and it's suggested that their animosity was purely through a need to better the other - as after Prost's retirement, Senna offered praise to his opponent.

It all leads to the tragic climax at San Marino. Seeing the footage from that weekend, especially after Roland Ratzenberger's death in qualifying, is eerie. He appears distant and highly strung, though it's easy to add meaning in hindsight.

Senna was perhaps the last great champion of F1 before going into the age of huge technological advancements. It doesn't take a huge leap to imagine that if he had survived, he may well have set a record amount of championships that Schumacher would never have surpassed. Or maybe he would have grown bored and retired.

Not just for big racing fans, Senna is an excellent film showing a man driven to be the best and making it, with a nice dollop of drama added in. You just wish that F1 now had characters in the same league.

Why Don't You Get Back Into Bed?

Apropos of nothing, I was reminded today of one of those stupid "motivational" quotes that you get in some offices in some vain attempt to get us to work harder. It read "There is no happiness except in the realisation that we have accomplished something", said by Henry Ford. To which my reaction would be "bollocks".

Leaving aside Hank's obnoxious views of certain parts of society, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to see why he'd say such a thing. A rampant capitalist, to the degree he felt world peace would be best achieved by the increase of consumerism, it was in his interests to ensure people felt a sense of achievement - probably by either building a load of Model Ts or working hard enough so that they could afford to buy one.

So, in response, I would like to put forward the idea that happiness can be reached through the simplicity of doing very little, if anything at all. As a chap who freely admits to being something of an idle sod at the best of times, I can quite happily spend an entire day in bed doing sweet FA and feel very good from it. Indeed, I think the need to have time doing jack shit is greatly underestimated in our modern society.

My slacking hero was my grandfather, a man who spent far too much of his life working three miles under the sea digging coal from the earth. Naturally, when he was laid off he elected to chill out for a while and spent the subsequent 30 years of his enforced retirement lying on the sofa, reading the racing form and wondering who to back for the 3.15 at Doncaster. This, to me, seemed a somewhat idyllic way of life, despite my having no love of gambling.

Not that there isn't much to be found from a sense of achievement, it's just that I never seem to find it in the world of paid employment. I'll feel good when I write a song, when I finish a book or even when I finish writing this here article. In fact, I'll probably have me a celebratory beer when I get to the end (now there's motivation...) but I've rarely felt it from whatever counts as actual work. I clock in, do the gig as required, clock out. Some of us get to do jobs that gift us with a real sense of self-worth, most of us just get through it to ensure we don't spend next Christmas down the Sally Army.

Bertrand Russell had the right idea when he wrote In Praise of Idleness. He was no lazy get, being one of the top thinkers this here island has ever produced and he knew the whole idea of work ethics and joy from work was/is a big con to get us plebs out of bed on a rainy winter's morn. We can only hope that technology can continue to evolve to the point where we're free from the working week to the degree we can all actually have a proper go at getting happy on our own terms.

End of a Season

Another season comes to a close and let's be frank, as a Manchester United fan, it was hard to be too disappointed with what happened on Saturday night. Barcelona are as good as the hype and we're not actually that good, compared to previous years at least. If you'd said to me in November that we would win the league and reach the Champions League final, I'd have assumed you'd been sniffing the glue.

As for the final, I'm not sure we ever stood much chance. We needed them to have a major off day and for us to play beyond our best. It didn't happen. Perhaps if we'd invested in some kind of cloning machine to make up versions of Bryan Robson circa 1984 and Mark Hughes circa 1991, we'd have been able to make a better fight of it but, alas, science still has a lot to do.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL
1) Javier Hernandez emerging as a potentially world-class striker. When the news came through prior to the World Cup, I doubt most fans had much idea of what would happen. He got the team out of jail several times, notably at Stoke and West Brom, and his winner against Everton kept us on track for the title after the wobble at Newcastle.

2) Chris Smalling turning out to be a handy defender, which was just as well after Jonny Evans seemed to forget how to play football with any degree of confidence. Smooth on the ball in the tradition of McQueen, Pallister and Ferdinand, he can only get better by learning from the latter of those and Vidic. In his first couple of appearances, he looked hopelessly lost on the big stage, but he's proven to be a quick learner and bar the odd mistake we can put down to lack of experience, I'm never worried to see his name on the team sheet.

3) Having watched the FA Youth Cup final 2nd leg last week, we've got a few young lads who look like they could make it in Ravel Morrison, Paul Pogba and Ryan Tunnicliffe, assuming the first of those can stay out of jail. With Tom Cleverley and Danny Welbeck both impressing in their loan spells, you'd hope next season will see them given the chance to shine, especially with Giggs and Scholes getting older and Darron Gibson just not being good enough.

REASONS TO WORRY
1) The Glazers potentially preventing the kind of investment the squad needs to stay on top, especially with the Money Pit up the road finally breaking their trophy drought and making it into the big boys league. Whoever gets the poisoned chalice of the Chelsea hotseat will also doubtless have big bucks to spunk on whoever they fancy either. Luckily, Arsenal will do their usual implosion next season, so no need to worry about them.

2) Edwin van der Sar retiring. Before the 1990s, United teams usually had a pretty decent keeper who was just short of top class (Stepney, Bailey, Sealey) or a bit ropey (Roche, Leighton). Thankfully, we've been blessed with two of the best in the big Danish guy and Mr Ed. But with the Dutchman taking a well deserved break at the age of 40, the worry is that we'll go through the same fiasco we did after 1999. If we'd signed Eddie then, I reckon we might have won another European title or two. Still, thanks for the memories, big fella, and take it easy.

3) The lack of quality in midfield. Owen Hargreaves has been binned off, itself a great shame as we've sorely missed a proper ball winner in the middle of the park. Capitulations against Liverpool, Arsenal, City in the cup and Barcelona were not helped by the lack of someone to spoil the other's teams play. In the past, we've had Robson, Ince and Keane, three of the best. Here's hoping Fergie has identified a solution.

To conclude, any season we win the league is a good one by my standards. When I was a kid, I always wondered whether we'd win more championships and European Cups than Liverpool. We've done half of that, and if not for the fact of one insanely good team, we might have even equalled them on the other. Always next year.