From an Edmonton Sun editorial suggesting a solution to the issue of Tamil or other dark-skinned refugees appearing on our shores in search of, yes, refuge:
Yeah, I know, but it happened. A major daily newspaper, in Canada in the year A.D. 2010, actually proposed sinking ships carrying refugees. Somewhere, Captain Gustav Schröder shakes his head in disgust.
Blackpool's Stanley Matthews(l) takes on Bolton's Malcolm Barrass in the 1953 FA Cup FinalYes, 'til the season again! And once more, we are here with fearless predictions! This year, I've decided to divide the Premiership teams up into groups, based on their rough projected finish. Furthermore, I have wittily named these groups after Clash songs. So here we go (teams are listed in alphabetical order in each group, and last year's finish is in brackets after the team name)!
"Brand New Cadillac": Arsenal (3), Chelsea (1), Manchester City (5), Manchester United (2). You can probably lay down money that your champion will come from this group, and there's a good chance that these teams will hog all the Champions' League spots. Large questions remain concerning Man City's ability to get their very expensive lineup to gel (and they're not done tinkering with it yet), but I think they're ready to make the jump. The other three teams here are long-standing members of the "Big Four," and it'll be no surprise at all to see them clustered at the top of the table again. These teams have no chance at all of being relegated, and failure to qualify for Europe will be viewed as a catastrophe.
"Safe European Home": Everton (8), Liverpool (7), Tottenham Hotspur (4). Here we have the teams that are likely to take the Europa Cup (formerly UEFA Cup) spots. These teams are dangerous, and do have a chance to creep into the Champions' League, as Spurs did last season, but they probably won't contend for the Premiership title. Fortunately, relegation is also virtually out of the question. And what is Liverpool, traditionally one of the "Big Four," doing in this lowlier group? Suffering from major financial problems, is what. Liverpool are actually very hard to figure out for this season; they could rise above it all and get in there with the big boys at the top of the table, or they could implode, sell all their good players, and finish 16th.
"Lost in the Supermarket": Aston Villa (6), Birmingham (9), Blackburn Rovers (10), Bolton Wanderers (14), Fulham (12), Newcastle United (promoted), Stoke City (11), Sunderland (13). Ah, here we have the great "meh" of the mid-table of the Premiership, with no disrespect intended. These teams generally don't have the financial clout to compete for Champions' League spots, and can really only hope (faintly) to fight their way into the lesser Europa Cup. Relegation is also unlikely for these teams; however, a bad run of injuries or loss of form could land any one of them in hot water quite quickly. The mystery team here is Newcastle. They're back, obviously, and they've certainly got the fan-base to compete with anyone, but the seers have foreseen a season consolidation before they once again assail the upper reaches of the Premiership. We also originally had Aston Villa in the "Safe European Home" group, but their manager walked out on them this week, three days before their first game, and that's not going to do their chances any good at all.
"Should I Stay or Should I Go?": West Bromwich Albion (promoted), West Ham United (17), Wigan Athletic (16), Wolverhampton Wanderers (15). No, I do not have anything against the letter "W". These teams must be a bit nervous looking forward to the season, since two of the relegation spots are likely to go to members of this group. Mid-table safety will be quite acceptable, and a spot in Europe next season would border on the miraculous. West Ham are probably the strongest of this group, and the most likely to survive.
"Train in Vain": Blackpool (promoted). Almost dead certs for relegation, unfortunately. Once one of England's great teams, Blackpool last saw the top division in 1971, and have stumbled around the lower flights ever since. Now, a couple of years back Hull City managed to survive their first ever Premiership season, so the situation isn't totally hopeless, but Blackpool's chances are slim and none, and slim's in the taxi on the way to the airport. Blackpool just don't have the resources to compete at this level. At least they'll always have "The Matthews Final."
So, in the end, your Premiership table is likely to look roughly so:
| 1 | Manchester United |
| 2 | Arsenal |
| 3 | Manchester City |
| 4 | Chelsea |
| 5 | Liverpool |
| 6 | Tottenham Hotspur |
| 7 | Everton |
| 8 | Aston Villa |
| 9 | Newcastle United |
| 10 | Sunderland |
| 11 | Birmingham City |
| 12 | Fulham |
| 13 | Bolton Wanderers |
| 14 | Blackburn Rovers |
| 15 | Stoke City |
| 16 | West Ham United |
| 17 | Wigan Athletic |
| 18 | Wolverhampton Wanderers |
| 19 | West Bromwich Albion |
| 20 | Blackpool |
And what of Millwall, back in the Championship, the second tier of English football? Well, to be honest, their goal this season is to finish above three other teams in the standings. I'll be happy wherever they end up, as long as they don't get relegated straight back to League 1. And they're off to a decent start; the Championship actually began play last weekend, and Millwall strolled off to Bristol City, a team with a genuine shot at promotion to the Premiership. Sometime later, they strolled back to London, having thrashed City 3-0. So that was good, but there's still a long road ahead of them.
And finally, you didn't think I'd do the whole "Clash song title" thing and then not post a vid, did you? Here's "Safe European Home":
So with the Premiership season due to commence on Saturday, the wizened Kobold seers are even now adding the eye of newt and such to the scrying cauldrons to see what may be seen. Last year the seers did pretty well, actually correctly selecting the three relegated teams (missed on the title winners, though, and went three-for-four on Champions League participants).
That's for tomorrow, however. In the meantime, behold! as one of the greatest scientific questions of our age is at last answered:
The Circumvesuviana, the commuter train that makes its way around the Bay of Naples from Naples itself to Sorrento, has had a very bad day.
So, great, right? Who, in their right mind, could possibly object to a declining crime rate? Well, step forward, Government of Canada!
Treasury Board President Stockwell Day says the government will go ahead with its plan to spend billions for new prisons, suggesting statistics that show crime is declining in Canada are not accurate.
During a news conference on Tuesday in Ottawa, Day said the government has received indications that more and more people are not reporting crimes committed against them.
"Received indications," eh? "Decided to pretend, since we really, really, reeeeeeeelly want some shiny new prisons to put people in so that we can look tough" is closer to the mark here. Even for a group as ideology-driven as the Conservative Party, this is pretty blatant.
When questioned by perplexed reporters, Day did not elaborate on what information source he was basing his claims, but said he would provide figures to them later.
"Our interns are nearly finished making these figures up," he did not add, although strict honesty would probably require him to do so.
It's a very great shame that actual crime prevention, from the standpoint of public policy, isn't sexy. It requires extending compassion, time, understanding, and often public money to folks that your average cheerful middle-class voter likely finds pretty unappealing. Furthermore, it doesn't allow people like Stockwell Day nearly enough opportunity to go into full Wyatt Earp mode. And that's how we end up with governmental attacks on safe injection sites, billions spent on the closing of barn doors long after the horses have vanished over the horizon, and the bizarre spectacle of the party in government acting butthurt because the crime rate isn't high enough for them.
I am off to cat-sitting job number two, spending a couple of days looking after Benny, about whom I have blogged before. Benny seems fine - he is now a mostly full-time indoor cat, which spares him from the malicious attentions of the magpies outside, among other things.
In the meantime, here's the Noisettes doing a cover of a very early Buzzcocks song (the Buzzcocks are, I think, one of the great overlooked early punk bands). I gather that the cover version was recorded to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martens boots. So, a worthy cause then. Original version of the song is here.
I am currently on that gig once more, hence the lack of much blogging in the last week or so. This time I have three furry ones to take care of, although they're pretty good at taking care of themselves (particularly the eldest of the three, who is prone to holding the other two down and giving them tongue baths.
More later!
I've got a couple of posts that I'm poking away at, but in lieu of actually sitting down and finishing one, here's a movie of a deer washing a cat.
All together now: "Awwwwwwwww!"
In no particular order:
To the Netherlands, for being this close, again.
To Jules Rimet, for coming up with the whole idea in the first place.
To the Diegos: Uruguay's Forlán, for being justly chosen the best player at the World Cup, and Argentina's Maradona, for somehow making himself into a genuine feel-good story.
To Andres Iniesta, for honouring Dani Jarque (see picture in post below).
To New Zealand, who went unbeaten(!!!!!!!!).
To Slovakia and Serbia, who were there, technically, for the first time.
To Müller, Villa, Sneijder, and Forlán, who scored 5 apiece for their countries.
To Algeria and Honduras, who failed to score at all.
To Ireland, who should have been there.
To Laurent Blanc, half of one of the greatest pre-game rituals ever, who now has the job of putting the French team back together.
To Cesare Prandelli, who'll have the same task with Italy.
To the young, skillful, and entertaining German team, from whom more will be heard in the future.
To England and Portugal, who didn't get to play their traditional quarter-final thriller this time around.
To Robert Green, may the leather-lunged ruffians on the terraces be kind to him.
To Gattuso, and Cannavaro, and maybe Buffon, and the other Azzurri that we won't see in that shirt again.
To Canada. One day, one day...
To Iker Casillas, for embarassing his girlfriend while she was at work. And for being the best 'keeper on the planet.
To Ghana, who deserved better.
To the United States, who served notice.
To Tim Howard, who joined Brad Friedel and Kasey Keller, and possibly others, on the list of strong, classy, American goalkeepers, and did so while suffering from Tourette's Syndrome.
To the dreaded penalty shoot-out, which claimed only two victims this time around (Japan and Ghana, in case you're wondering).
To Uruguay. Who'd have thought they'd be the last South American team standing?
To the refs. Out of 64 games, we had about 4 which involved any kind of serious officiating controversy. Not bad at all.
To the host country, which did a spectacular job, vuvuzelas and all.
To Brazil, now on the clock.
And finally, to Spain, who deserved it in the end.
More, perhaps, as/if I think of them - feel free to add your own in the comments! In the meantime, it was a good World Cup.
Disappointed for the Dutch, but if we're being honest about it, Spain were pretty much the better team on the day. And so congratulations to them!
A quick vignette from the Bookstore:
We have doing some fairly hard-core cleaning and reorganization of the textbook section lately, and this has led to the discovery of some interesting cultural artefacts. My favourite one so far, discovered slipped down inside one of the shelves in the Health Education section, has been...
...wait for it...
... a copy of the Dragonheart Picture Storybook. You may remember Dragonheart as being the movie that managed to suck despite having Sean Connery playing a dragon.
The things people leave behind...
And that's an all-of-a-sudden sort of thing, isn't it? Weren't we just tuning in to see South Africa play Mexico yesterday?
Been a while since we did one of this just for its own sake, and a longer while since I've listened to this band, so...
* cranks up phonograph, moves dog *
...here's Tilt:
And we're down to the final four! As expected, South American giants Brazil and Argentina have progressed, untroubled, to... um... the... ah... wait, what?
More Later!
You simply cannot strike a soccer ball any better than Carlos Tevez does in this video:
That, my friends, is a perfect shot (it was measured at 111 kph). The best reply of it is the one that begins at 1:09.
(apologies for the dodgy video quality. I'll try to find better)
