Greeting-Faced Scouse Twat

Steven Gerrard has told Liverpool's website: "There is no way I want the disappointment of the Germany game to be my last."

 

I don't think he has anything to fear - there's no way the Germany game will be his last England-related disappointment.

The Groanin' Jock Book Club

AKA what I've been reading recently.

 

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

Excellent novel tying together a number of lives from Victorian times to a post-apocalytpic future. Easily the best book I read in 2009, it made me hungry to read more of Mitchell's work.

 

Friends Like These - Danny Wallace
Entertaining tale told in Wallace's light-hearted, chatty style. A quick read, and one never destined to sit amongst the great literay tomes of our age, but an enjoyable diversion. Wallace finds an address book from his childhood and attempts to track down everyone listed in it.

 

The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
My first foray into the Discworld, this was the the fourth Terry Pratchett novel I read, after the Gnomes trilogy back when I was at primary school. The most obvious comparison I can think of is with The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, with the same style of off-centre humour and blend of madcap imagination. I'll be back for more.

 

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
One of the classics of 20th century literature. I've not yet seen the film, and I'm glad to have read the novel first. Frequently hilarious and ultimately heartbreaking, McMurphy and the Big Nurse are two of the most finely-crafted characters I can remember from my 26 years of reading.

 

As Easy As Pi: Stuff About Numbers That Isn't (Just) Maths - Jamie Buchan
An interesting and entertaining look at the world of numbers and the world in numbers. Explores the history of our numbering system as well as real-life examples of where arithemtic and maths play an important, if unseen, part.

 

'78 - How A Nation Lost The World Cup - Graham McColl
Interesting account of Scotland's ill-fated 1978 World Cup campaign. Lacked insight from some of the key figures, most notably the late Ally McLeod. It would also have been interesting to hear the views of Graeme Souness, who barely featured in the three group stage matches, and Derek Johnstone, who didn't play at all despite having enjoyed a tremendous season with Rangers in the run up to the campaign.

 

The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
I didn't enjoy the second Discworld novel as much as the first - it didn't seem to have the same sparkle as the first. It was still a good read, but I'd have liked to have seen more character development and a different story. I still have high hopes for the series though, which I'm way behind the rest of the world in reading.

 

Empire - Niall Ferguson
Thorough account of the rise and fall of the British Empire. Covers Britain's rise from an "archipelago of rainy islands off the north-west coast of Europe" to ruling the world. The reasons behind the growth of the empire, the conditions that made it possible and the events that brought its demise are all explored in incredible detail. An excellent read.

 

The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Recommended by a friend of Mrs Wife's, my impression of this short novel was that it wasn't as clever as it, or its author, purported to be. Diverting enough in its own way, tracking an elderly New Yorker's journey to heaven after dying in an accident, but not as good as I'd hoped.

 

How To Be Idle - Tom Hodgkinson
A slacker's handbook, this book acts as a guidebook on how to live a life of little exertion, outlining the perfect lazy day, how to achieve it and why a 9-to-5 life goes against human nature. Interesting in places, its dry style eventually resulted in boredom.

 

Garden Of Beasts - Jeffrey Deaver
Fast-paced and entertaining pre-World War Two thriller that combined espionage, an American hitman and the 1936 Berlin Olympics, as well as cameo appearances from Jesse Owen, Himmler, Goring, Goebbels and even Hitler himself. The first book I read while on holiday in Benidorm, this proved to be a highly entertaining read.

 

Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
Not as good as I was expecting, this was my entry point into the Twilight fever that seems to have gripped the world. I'm a sucker for a modern-day vampire story, but Twilight too often descended into rambling monologues where Bella waxed lyrical about how beautiful Edward's pale skin and copper eyes were. Decent enough, just a little drippy for my tastes.

 

Pig Island - Mo Hayder
Another thriller, this one was set in Mid Argyll, an area I know well having lived there for nearly three years. This gave the book a lot of local character from my point of view, but too often Hayder made factual errors that I couldn't forgive. Taking these errors out of the equation (even if it is hard to accept that she frequently misspelled Crinan and referred to Inverar(a)y as being some kind of major shopping centre), this was a good read, with some interesting twists.

 

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
I'd never read any of Fitzgerald's work before, and I'm not sure I will again after reading The Great Gatsby. I'm not sure what I expected from the book, but it failed to deliver much in the way of genuine plot until near its end.

 

Shakespeare - Bill Bryson
Attempting to deconstruct the myth that is William Shakespeare, Bryson eschews anything that can't be proven through reliable sources. Which doesn't leave much in the way of concrete facts, but this was nonetheless a very entertaining and informative look at the world's most famous writer.

 

Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Another classic, and another that left me pondering. Perhaps because its language and messages have passed into common use (Room 101, Big Brother et al), but I was left feeling that I already knew the story of Winston's battle with the powers of Ingsoc. It remains, however, one of the high water marks in 20th Century fiction.

 

Hand Of God: The Life Of Diego Maradona - Jimmy Burns
The (very) unauthorised life story of the world's greatest ever footballer. This book was published almost a decade ago, and as a result doesn't cover El Diego's return from the wilderness to become manager of his beloved Argentina. A mesmerising tale of a chubby urchin blessed with incredible gifts for football and self-destruction. There are very strong parallels with the biography of Michael Jackson I read last year - the flawed genius for whom fame was both a friend and a foe.

Telling It Like It Is

Click on the picture to biggify it.

Bongo Bongoland....

....and the Former Soviet Republic of Bulimia.

 

Not the fevered imaginings of Herge in his Tin-Tin books, nor countries peopled by Enid Blyton's folk of the Faraway Tree.

 

Nope, these lands are mentioned in a letter published in the Daily Mail on June 9, 2010.

 

The Daily Mail readership - almost beyond parody.

Head In The (Oil)Sand

As a market analyst working in the oil industry, I'm on BP's press releases mailing list.

 

This afternoon, I received the following release - note especially the headline:

 

BP is Not Aware of Any Reason for Share Price Movement

 

BP notes the fall in its share price in US trading last night. The company is not aware of any reason which justifies this share price movement.
BP continues to keep the market updated on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill through regular announcements. The response to this incident is our top priority.

 

BP faces this situation as a strong company. In March, we indicated that the company's cash inflows and outflows were balanced at an oil price of around $60/barrel. This was before the costs of the incident.

 

Under the current trading environment, we are generating significant additional cash flow. In addition, our gearing is currently below the bottom of our targeted range. Our asset base is strong and valuable, with more than 18bn barrels of proved reserves and 63bn barrels of resources as at the end of 2009. All of the above gives us significant capacity and flexibility in dealing with the cost of responding to the incident, the environmental remediation and the payment of legitimate claims.

 

BP will continue to keep the market fully informed of further developments in the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, in compliance with its listing obligations.

 

Does anyone want to give them a hint as to the reasons for their "share price movement"? (That's a polite euphemism by the way - BP's share price has fallen 32 per cent in the past month).

 

Subtle hint to BP - if you're responsible for the worst oil spill in history, don't pretend you're "not aware" of its impact on your share price.

All Work And No Play

In this month's issue of Four Four Two, I've just read the best description yet of New Labour drones/leadership contenders David and Ed Miliband:

"The frontrunners in their leadership race being a pair of brothers who make the twins in The Shining look like siblings you could enjoy a relaxed pint with".

BP's Forward Thinking

This is from a 1999 BP advert....

Mince

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

It Was 30 Years Ago Today (Volume II)

Happy Birthday to Mrs Wife, who's now as old as her husband.

City For Sale

The long-running battle over Aberdeen's proposed City Square development took another turn yesterday, with the city council voting in favour of allowing the plans to progress.

 

Those opposed to the development haven't taken it well, claiming that the process was undemocratic - despite the fact that the democratically-elected councillors voted on the proposal. Their claim is that the results of a public consultation - where a majority of a tiny proportion of the city's residents voted against the plans - were ignored.

 

As a result, one disenfranchised member of the electorate (who was probably also opposed to the Union Square development and will not doubt be campaigning vehemently against Donald Trump's golf course plans) has listed the city for sale on Ebay.

 

If you can't beat them, greet about it until the cows come home.

What's New?

Once again, I'm concerned at my recent music buying, and I'm becoming increasingly aware that I'm buying less and less new music.

The last ten albums I bought were:

The Black Keys - Attack & Release
Fleetwood Mac - Then Play On
Ultrasound - Everything Picture
The Highwaymen - The Highwayman Collection
John Mayall & The Blues Breakers - Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton
The Who - Who Are You
The Who - The Who By Numbers
Fairport Convention - Unhalfbricking
Gram Parsons - GP/Grievous Angel
Lee "Scratch" Perry - Soul Fire

Not one of them released this year. Only The Black Keys album was even released this century.

Am I losing my touch or spreading my roots further into classic blues, country, folk and reggae?

Meet The New Boss

It was impossible to escape the post-election coverage last night, much to Mrs Wife's disdain, she being of the opinion that Eastenders and Heston Blumenthal's Mental Kitchen (or whatever it's called) are of far more importance than who'll be running the country over the next five years.

 

I thought Gordon Brown's resignation speech was extremely dignified given the circumstances, and that David Cameron's address from the steps of 10 Downing Street smacked of schadenfreude.

 

Looking ahead, I can't help but think that the Liberal Democrats have cut their own throats. By sliding into bed with the Tories, they've made a mockery of their supposed LIBERAL tendencies (the clue's in the title Mr Clegg), and if they think they stand a real chance of altering Tory policy, I fear that they may be sorely mistaken.

 

Maybe I'll be proved wrong, and the first coalition government this country has seen in 70 years will herald a new age in politics.

 

But the overwhelming feeling is that something, somewhere, went wrong.

 

The next year is going to be interesting though, and this is only the second change of government of my lifetime. Worryingly, there's a certain sense of deja vu as "Dave" saunters into Number 10, six months younger than when the man I despise more than any other on the planet did the same thing in 1997.

 

Hopefully we won't have to endure 10 years of his Return To Blair routine though.

 

(As a final aside, am I the only person who thinks that Samantha Cameron is more attractive than a Prime Minister's wife ought to be? Fair enough, Sarah Brown and Cherie Blair aren't much competition, but still....)

Dark Humour

I received an email today that purported to be a true story from Campbeltown.

Apparently, a business in the town has the following poster in its window:

"We would rather do business with 1,000 Al Qaeda terrorists than with one single British soldier".

While on the face of things that would appear to be a fairly antagonistic message to display in the window of a British business, the email claims that the business in question is....

....a funeral parlour.

So, Argyll residents, is that a true story?

Bent Shots?

I saw this photograph this afternoon on Who Ate All The Pies? when I should have been putting together some cutting edge market analysis.

First off, I don't care whether Zlatan Ibrahmiovic and Gerard Pique are the world's most high-profile gay footballers. What got me thinking is that if they are they're the ONLY gay footballers I'm aware of playing at the very top of the game.

In fact, the only other gay footballer I can remember is Justin Fashanu, who of course tragically committed suicide in 1998.

In the west, somewhere between two and thirteen per cent of the population is estimated to be gay. Say, for argument's sake, that the figure is ten per cent. Then, presume that each Premiership club has a 20-man squad. That's 40 gay men.

Even assuming that only two per cent of men are gay. That's eight gay Premiership footballers. Even suppose that the macho world of football has only half as many gay employees as society at large. That's four Premiership footballers.

It seems strange that, when football has largely managed to shake off the worst of its racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and bigoted bad days, no gay players have publicly come out.

Will Ibrahimovic and Pique be the first?

Foreign Food

I read this article on The Guardian's website recently, and couldn't help but smile.

 

It's definitely a bit of a gaff to have a recipe call for "salt and freshly ground black people" in your latest cookbook.

 

Because everyone knows that tagliatelle tastes much better with a few dessicated Asians on top.

Friday Ten: Ten People Who Aren't Coming To My Birthday Party Tomorrow

1: Osama Bin Laden

2: Barack Obama

3: Kylie Minogue

4: John Terry

5: David Cameron

6: Courtney Love

7: Paul McCartney

8: Lewis Hamilton

9: Tiger Woods

10: Cheryl Cole

A Picture Tells A Thousand Words

There's a widespread belief that comics are a juvenile artform.

 

That somehow, just because a story is illustrated, it is somehow less deserving of appreciation than if it were told by means of words alone.

 

To which I say - utter nonsense.

 

I've always been an afficionado of comic books, although it took a lengthy hiatus between my early teenage years and my acquiring (as a present from Mrs Wife) Frank Miller's Dark Knight Batman books a couple of years ago.

 

But there are dozens of comics and graphic novels that more than stand their own amongst the great novels of our time.

 

As well as the Miller's Dark Knight books - particularly The Dark Knight Returns, which chronicles the exploits of an aging Batman returning to fight crime after a period of retirement - titles such as Watchmen, Wanted, Sin City, Superman: Red Son, Kick-Ass and the Marvel Civil War epic are all worthy of high praise.

 

Without comics, many of the biggest (which, I concede, doesn't necessarily mean best) movies of the last 50 years would never have seen the light of day.

 

Alan Moore's Watchmen even appears on TIME magazine's list of the 100 greatest novels of all time - an honour I don't expect will ever be bestowed upon Harry Potter or Dan Brown.

Pig's Ear

I'm reading a book at the moment, Pig Island by Mo Hayder, that is set in and around my former stomping ground, Mid Argyll.

It's interesting and entertaining to read a thriller set in a part of the world I know so well.

But what is irritating is that there are factual inaccuracies that leave me questioning the author's knowledge of the local area.

She mentions Oban having cobbled streets - but I don't recall any. She mentions that Oban Police Station is a brick building on the main street. But it's a sandstone building away from the town centre.

Inveraray (misspelt Inverary throughout) has a Superdrug and a Holland and Barrett - which will be news to its residents. Not only has it been turned into a major shopping centre, it's now only 15 miles from Crinan - or Crinian as Hayder insists on spelling it throughout the book.

These mistakes are so annoying that I'm almost tempted to give up on the book.

Which is a shame, as it's an otherwise entertaining read.

Gone But Never Forgotten

Mrs Wife's uncle died today after a lengthy illness.

Although I'd only known him a few years, I'll miss him greatly. He was one of the kindest, most generous, friendliest and funniest people I've ever met.

Every minute spent in his company, even the hungover ones, is one that I'll treasure, and the world is a considerably poorer place today than yesterday.

Gone but never forgotten.

Season 2009/2010: Match 14: Montrose v Livingston

Yesterday I was at what will probably be the last match I'll attend this season, Scotland's worst team facing the newly-crowned Division Three champions.

Shock of shocks, Montrose got pumped 5-0. They played well enough in the first half, but conceded the first just five minutes before half time.

The second half was a complete write-off though, and Montrose will be glad to see the back of it and this miserable season.

Steven Tweed has 13 players signed up for next season. But that doesn't exactly fill anyone with confidence. There have been brief flashes of decent play over the course of the season, but it's generally been a long hard slog.

At least Livingston, the most morally (and financially) bankrupt side in Scottish football are gone from the division. Clyde are coming down next season, and I'd expect them to be favourites to bounce straight back up.

But for Montrose, anything better than bottom will be a start....