Culture, Alienation, Boredom & Despair

Philomena

I wouldn't usually go in for a 'human interest' British film with Judi Dench starring, me. Not European enough, not historical enough, not political enough, too Judi Dench~y by half.
But thank god for Steve Coogan, as if he hadn't written, produced and starred (as journalist Martin Sixsmith) in this, I almost certainly wouldn't have seen it, which would have been a massive shame, as it's excellent, one of the best of 2013. Also, thank god he took the project under his wing, otherwise it almost certainly would have been absolutely horrible. 

What he, Steven Frears et al have done here is pretty impressive - they've taken a Tuesday afternoon TV TrueMovies-esque shamltz-fest waiting to happen and turned it into a genuinely funny, warm and interesting film. And they've done it knowingly enough for 'smart' fans to get it (his phone call to his editor flagging up openly the black/white basic premise "she's the goody...the evil wicked nuns are the nasty baddies", and the recurring little digs at "horrible journalists", "doorstepping" and anything-for-story newspapers) but kept it unknowing enough, that the 'marks', or to be fairer, people just wanting a nice story, wont be disappointed either. 

Steve Coogan is one of the best people in public life - an intelligent, funny, smart-arse, someone who likes to bang on about things most people don't want to hear about - all in all a proper sound gobshite with an inflated sense of his own opinions, everything that LoT aspires towards. He is excellent all the way through this (even if playing a New Labour affiliated Russian historian was always going to be a winner, what ever the context) , and I have to think that this is the direction he should be going full-time now. It says a lot that I've seen this, and am eagerly anticipating the next series of The Trip, but haven't yet got up the courage to chance the Partridge film. 

As good as Coogan is in \Philomena, it couldn't have possibly worked without someone playing the title role off him just as well - so hats off to 'Dame' Judi Dench, who is completely believable, eminently sympathetic and steals (or is allowed to steal) the biggest laughs in the whole film with a few well-placed hilarious lines. A revelation - given that I raised no dissent when she was described by the estimable founder of this fine website as "'Garb' Garby Garbage" but a year ago.

The scene where they are together at the airport before setting off to try to trace her orphaned son in America, and Philomena describes in minute detail the book she's just finished reading begins funny and gets funny, is oddly poignant - and will ring oh-so-true to anyone who's ever asked their Gran on the sly who the fit-looking one in Emmerdale is, and been deservedly made to sit through no-plot-twist-too-small, 40 minute , exhaustive recap of the character's entire back-story as a penance. 

I suppose its possible there are some people out there who think that what should have been a pure mother-seeks-son heart-string-tugger has been sullied by the way its been done - that the very palely painted leftish tinge (criticism of anti-gay Republican policies, unflattering depiction of the catholic church) has somehow spoiled that, but I would think they'd have to really try very hard to not be won over by the overall excellence of a film I thought was nigh-on perfectly pitched throughout. 

 '1913' & Spin The Globe

Two pretty simple ideas here - one a book, one a radio programme. The common thread is picking one set point in time, then ranging off around the world to see what was going on at the same time, with little if any knowledge or communication between the disparate people and events that throws up. 

In the Spin The Globe, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03h36ll/Spin_the_Globe_1605/ that point is 5th November 1605, the date of "the biggest non-event in history" with the Gunpowder Plot. 

The show is only 30 minutes, which works perfectly in recreating the whistle-stop kind of effect the producers were obvious going for, with the option for any listeners to go off on their own and follow-up anything that caught their attention particularly in their own time. Now, I haven't done that, but is no reflection on the quality of the programme, which is pitched at the less-serious end of the scale when it comes to BBC Radio 4 History (like being one of the less-dastardly capitalist fellating investment banks, or in the less-dry wing of Ryvvita flavours maybe), as we get a brief introduction to, in no order, the first ever newspaper being printed in Strasbourg, a volcano erupting in Peru, the time of troubles in Russia, Polish troops occupying The Kremlin, Shah Abbas running amok in Iran (replete with "a rather proud and fantastic looking handlebar moustache") and goings on in Virginia involving Tisquantum which were particularly hard to follow. 

Far more easy to comprehend is 1913, which takes the eponymous year and investigates the cultural circumstances between the year the Titanic sank and the year the First World War began. 

The narrative is chopped up into a diary-like style and that helps the book whizz-along at a raucous pace - I did the 250~ish pages in a couple of readings. One of the highlights comes pretty early on, framing the bizarre co-incidences that led to Stalin, Hitler & Tito all being in the same Vienna park during "an icy February gleaming in snow-white splendour". The erratic hopping between people, places and disciplines adds to the enjoyment, as whenever there's something you're not really interested in, the next paragraph jags off to reveal that the author of Bambi (Felix Salten) also produced 'challenging' & 'subversive' pornography that was banned in Vienna. 

..........the first Aldi being opened, a man having his penis bitten off by a donkey, the discovery of the ozone layer, Stalin fuming because he couldn't get into the nanny of the family he lodged with, the Federal Reserve being founded in New York, 'women issues and intrigues', Hitler painting, Futurists wearing wooden spoons in their coat pockets, 'ladies dresses, perfumed draperies, pink silk sheets', Franz Ferdinand playing with model railways, 'the audience couldn't swallow - they roundly hissed the piece', Franz Kafka, Einstein, Picasso, Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, sparkling win, Charlie Chaplin signing his first film contract....

........all are interwoven with jarring background snippets such as "on June 29th the Reichstag passes a military bill approving the increase of troops from 117,267 men to 661,478" to juxtapose brilliantly the flippant backdrop to what was to come - which is extremely effective: even though you know that's never been the way the world works, there's a temptation to imagine the build-up to anything momentous as everyone just sitting around grimly waiting for the inevitable to happen. 

A brilliantly conceived and wittily pulled off book - probably best summed up by this diary extract from September: 

"3 o'clock, Gerhart Fisher funeral.

5 o'clock big dress rehearsal for William Tell play!

That's life....."

Predistribution & White-Tie Black Noise

Two very differing 'articles' I came across this week combined to give both the best indication yet of what Labour in government might look like if they win in 2015, and also pointed out an enormous flaw with their efforts so far to make that happen and shift the lumpen, miserable shower we have currently. . 

The first was an edition of Analysis on R4 with Jacob Hacker talking convincingly, engagingly and intelligently and predistribution ('an unsnappy name for an inspiring idea'). I actually listened to this on the bus home from work and realised I'm in danger of going a bit too far with this kind of thing at times - a feeling not diminished by the stubborn refusal to sit next to me for a good while. When we got up by the uni though, a reassuringly fusty looking lecturer in his 50s shambled towards the empty seat and i thought to myself 'he'll probably appreciate me listening to this if there is any seepage through my headphones'. 

But he wasn't interested at all - he sat down and went immediately on his iPhone to the Attitude website and very thoroughly reviewed a photogallery of Tom Daley's crowing 'Sexiest Man In The World'. If there was anything he appreciated, it wasn't the idea of the state acting sooner to prevent inequality through progressive taxation. And if there was any seepage at all, it wasn't from me, and it wasn't from the ear-area...

So, Jacob Hacker. He's a guy from Yale who has developed this theory and Ed Miliband is by all accounts keener on it than this guy is for the new series of Splash! to get started. 

The programme goes on for 30 minutes http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02x6707 and if Miliband said 90% of what Hacker says, anyone who has any interest in or affection for the Labour cause couldn't help but agree:

Government should see itself as a vehicle for achieving equality and solidarity

There are ties that bind people above and beyond just being fellow consumers

Workers should have a voice (whether in a union or not)

The number and quality of jobs needs to be improved, and jobs need to pay more. Especially for cleaners  nurses and other essential jobs

Everyone should earn a fair, decent, living wage

Public sector jobs should be created to both do vital things for society as well as moving towards full employment, particularly in housing which is crying out for investment

This should produce broadly distributed gains which translate into economic gains for everyone

There is no excuse for poor public services, and if needs be aggressive taxation of extreme wealth and capital gains needs to be introduced to fund improvements - especially in certain areas (e.g. early-years childcare)

Government needs to make long-term investments in people (eg the Child Trust Fund)

In terms of welfare/benefits, the public has lost faith in this, so the contributory & reciprocal elements need to be re-inforced

We can learn from and utilise the methods used by Not-for-profit and 'foundation' companies

The trend of recent decades where society has become more and more unequal, unless things like the above are introduced, is going to become self-reproducing as the super-rich plough their money only into their own children, and opportunity becomes privatised. 

The second was this article in the Guardian written by someone who worked as a waitress at the Prime Minister's speech when he summoned all his intellectual rigour to set out his vision for the country: permanent spending cuts, more austerity, less state involvement in anything

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/13/david-cameron-austerity-public-sector-cuts. 

And all whilst dressed as if he was making a bid to embody the implications of this approach as emphatically as possible.

As Ruth Hardy says "The contrast between what he was saying and where he was saying it seemed initially almost too laughable to get worked up about...The guests enjoyed a champagne reception, and then were served a starter, a fish course and main course of fillet of beef, all served with wine, dessert, coffee, dessert wine, port, brandy and whisky were served, Cameron gave his speech. Maybe Cameron didn't see the irony, perhaps it didn't occur to him that this message might not be as easily comprehended by ...those of us, disabled or unemployed or on the minimum wage, for whom austerity has had a catastrophic and wounding effect."

The combination of these two different ends the same argument should be absolutely lethal weapons for Labour- the intellectual big-picture plan. The emotional, humourous irreverence But then there's the obvious problem: neither Hacker or Hardy are actually Labour representatives

Why is it not shadow-cabinet figures making these speeches and writing these artciles?

Ed Miliband is really, really good when he steps up, better than a lot of people realise, and I can give him the benefit of the doubt for now because there is a possible strategic plan to save himself and keep himself a bit of novelty and fresh quality for when he's going to need to be everywhere in a year/18months time.

Ed Ball's role is to be 'iron discipline' personified up to the election, so it is difficult for him to match that with rabble-rousing or difficult to grasp theoretical oratorios.

Everyone else though? Hello?? What are you actually doing???

As Hacker says to sum up the idea behind and need for predistribution - 'do we want to live in a society where just the uber-well-off elite jet-set around as untouchable cosmopolitans, whilst the rest are a constrained, squeezed, worried mass of spectators peering in on an unattainable, broken world of big dollars, pounds and cents?'

I'm fairly certain more people will vote for a rejection of that, than someone who couldn't be doing any more to show he's comfortable with exactly that. But if Labour don't start actually asking people the question a bit more, they're going to only have themselves to blame if it three years time we see another set of buttons popping off this tux:

Your Achilles Heel Is A Tendancy To Dream

Backer than back.

Backer than Eirik Bakke, listening to Bach at Bache station.

And what about tomorrow's match wouldn't be drawing people's attention after months of inaction?

Palace v Everton Baby!

All About The Game (and how you play it)
Its extremely difficult to come up with a case other than 'weird things happen' and 'its Everton' for this to be anything other than a comfortable away win. We've played pretty well all season, especially away from home against teams below us in the league - it seems to be a good combination for us when the home team thinks they should be having a go and causing problems, the change to having out and out midfielders (albeit not the most adventurous) instead of defenders 'doing a job' has had the not illogical effect of improving our passing from a bit deeper, setting us up for breaks better.

So, you'd expect Barry & Mccarthy to start even though there's been some 'getting ahead of ourselves' talk of not playing one/both so that they're not injured/suspended for the derby. Incidentally, what I've said there about better passing from the back doesn't incorporate Jagielka's scything hoofs across the pitch, which remain awful, despite some odd praise for them. This website (which I often refer to, not just when it comes up on Google to support a pithy comment) "Totel Football" has it right:

Phil Jagielka's Characteristics 

Likes to play long balls:

Very Often

The defence & keeper do seem to have got themselves sorted out again, only letting it 1 in the last three games, after a bit of an iffy spell, although there's a feeling that letting in one absolute farce of a goal is going to happen soon (Distin's near OG v Hull).

If seven of the side are pretty much guaranteed to start, the four further forward gives a bit more room for manoeuvre. I dont think the quartet that played v Spurs have really been consistent, despite all having flashes of quality, so Barkley, Deulofeu, Naismith and even maybe Jelavic could all be options. Despite his two starts so far being an iffy win over Stevenage and a loss at Fulham, I think i'd take a chance on the Spaniard this weekend

You look at Palace's squad......(have to actually do this, not just use the expression as shorthand for 'think about what players they have, what they're like, how they might line-up' as I genuinely dont think ive seen them play since that mad game when Danny Butterfield got a hattrick) ....and when we signed this lad off Barca, I'm sure it was with the intention of thinking he would have the arrogance to shred the likes of these. He worked well against Spurs lasts week and could have nicked it, so I would put him in for the mysteriously underwhelming Mirallas, and put Barkley back in for Osman as well.

Without trying to be the contrary wise-ass, I think Lukaku has been a tiny bit over-hyped too. He seems to need the whole team to focus through him a bit too much, and can drift out the game more easily than you'd want. He's clearly the best option we've got at the moment, but I think the lazy narrative that Mourinho has got it totally wrong by thinking Torres/Eto'o might score more and do more for the team over the season might end up being revised.

Brokedown Palace

Kate Beckinsale has a phobia of what? Answer at the end of this bit!

So, call me old fashioned, but the only player i actually know enough of to say 'he's actually a good player' is Kevin Phillips, who is 40. I actually think he was under-rated and must have come very close to getting a proper big move at one point. For a long, long period he'd have been recived with open arms at Goodison. In fact, if you look at the European Golden Boot winners list, it runs: Ronaldo (34), Jardel (36), Phillips (30), Jardel (42!) - and he's the only English player to have ever won it. A lot of them were spectacular goals too. I actually remember him playing v us in a rank Sunderland team in 2002/03 and thinking he was a much better all-round player than I'd ever allowed for too.

So, I'd play him if I was......Keith Millen, of course, Keith Millen tomorrow. There was a stat on MOTD last week that Chamakh has managed two shots on target in nine games, so he could hardly do worse. Jimmy Kebe is probably the 'danger man' aside from Phillips, although that agsain is based on an impression from over five years ago.

So, all in all I cant predict anything other than an Everton win, although the sight of all 15 sheets in Hotshots in work going for an away victory makes me wary of saying it - 2-0 to the Blues.

Its emetophobia - fear of vomiting. Dont really know how that works, hope it doesnt affect her too much though, 'cause she's lovely isnt she? Coming up to Christmas too, chance that the flawless festive feast that is Serendipity might get shown....

The old days were the old days. And they were great days. But now is now.

Unless I've misremembered, in the Premier League Years, we've been to Selhurst to play Palace four times and won four(2-0, 4-1, 3-1,3-1), with one loss during the monstrous Mike Walker dynasty of disaster - to an Andy Preece goal, which gave Palace their first win in about the tenth game of the season. So there is a potential equivalent there for a horrible loss to a goal from a sub-prime performer, but I dont think there's much 'read in' from that or the other previous encounters.

In 93, Everton dogged out a grim win on a grisly pitch in the January gloom. Nigel Martyn hacked down Beardsley in the first half but inexplicably wasn't sent off, but in the second half Matt Jackson potted the ball past the future Over-Rated-Everton-XI keeper after being teed-up by future Gobshite-Everton-Pundit-XI stalwart Ian Snodin. Beardsley had the last laugh by making it 2-0 late on from a neat scooped ball by future Wasted-Talent-Everton-XI captain Billy Kenny.

This game is also 'notable' as an unsightly chapter in the catalogue of incompetence that is the 92-93 Everton season review video, the "highlights" just being indiscriminately chosen chunks of inconsequential play - an ambling passage that goes no-where, curtailed eventually by an offside and "Roger Milford....stopping play" shown in laborious detail, then the goals rattled through in blink-and-you'll-miss-it cuts, with no commentary.

And no, I haven't seen it for years, I just remember all that. I am that cool.

Brand Extension Exercise

Jo Brand (pictured above in a picture on loan from the Most 90s Things Ever Gallery) supports Palace, which I am going to use to segue off into a political bit that no-one will like in a minute but I only remembered her at all, because she recently appeared on this: Can't Stand Up For Falling down , a nice little Radio 4 programme about Stand-Ups 'dying' on stage. Now all Jo Brand ever says is 'Men! I'm Fat! Arsenal!' right? - everyone knows that. But in fact in this instance she veered away from doing that and actually told a hilarious story Explained here (involves Sooty).

She has also been (in an incredibly minor way) in the news recntly supporting the NHS vehemently and saying

“To me, a politician’s job is to listen to constituents’ problems and try to sort them out.

"I suspect most politicians feel overwhelmed because people’s lives are a real struggle, full of unhappiness, and you would probably feel powerless to do anything about it.

"So you have to be a particular type of person to cope with that.

“I wonder how members of the present Tory Government can have any idea just how hard it is for most people, given how wealthy they all are. They don’t understand what being poor means.

“I like Ed Miliband very much and think he is a very decent bloke, and I hope the nation is warming to him.”

All of which I agree with and is conspicuously more constructive than her Russel Comic namesake's pathetic cry for absenteeism. I genuinely don't understand how he can attempt to be the voice of revolution, whilst at the same time espousing a course of action that if taken to its logical conclusion wopuld usher in an indefinate period of rule by the incumbent Conservatives - something that you'd think he'd realise was in fact quite a conservative, revolutionary thing to do.

Pork And Beans

This bit isnt even topical by the way.

Hypocrisy's great though isn't it? Everyone loves a politician being a complete hypocritical gimp, particularly when the one doing it is Danny "The Absolute Fucking State Of Him Though" Garbexander.

This was him in 2010, supporting Cameron & Clegg in the 'difficult & painful' decision to cancel all the attempt-at-growth plans Labour had put in place:

"Before the election Lord Mandelson had a giant chequebook which he went round opening up all over the country... he promised 200 projects, two thirds of which were conveniently located in Labour marginal seats.. the truth is that (these loans) were promised by the outgoing Labour Government as a calculated ploy to win support in (Labour areas)"

Such lofty, apolitical, putting the country first, all in it together, sentiments. So, how surprising that this should pop up a month or so:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/danny-alexander-brings-home-pork-fuel-duty-cut-lib-dem-seats

As we get closer to the election, we are likely to see ever more instances of "pork barrel" politics, an invaluable US term to describe the use of government money for the benefit of ministers' constituents. Of the 10 areas that Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander will announce will benefit from the rebate scheme (a 5p reduction in fuel duty), eight have Lib Dem MPs, including two in his own Inverness constituency .....this isn't the first time that Alexander, whose seat is being aggressively targeted by Labour, has doused his constituents with state largesse, "including funding for a tourist railway, a bailout for the London-Scotland sleeper train and tax breaks for ski lifts."

Spurious File Photo Of Dog Pushing A Pram

So, all that remains is to stick in a completely unrelated and immaterial photo in to end on a nominally light note - and wish a 'Happy Stag Day' for tomorrow to the Phidler!!!

"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain!"

Walk around the World

Due to time constraints, this week's blog attempts to allow the pictures to do the work for it.

Anelka
Throwing in this 'retirement' gimmick has screwed me right over, as one of the planned points of 'discussion'  was how much that signing was never going to work out and wondering just how upsetting/depressing it must be for a player, especially a striker like him who relies on people to put him in, to go from playing with the likes of Pires, Gerrard, Lampard, Raul, Seedorf etc - where you know you're going to found and get chances time and again - to plodding around in off chance that Graham Dorrans or James Morrison (neither of who are the worst in the league at all) might just end up screwing a shot in your general direction once a game.

This thought first occurred to me a few years ago when we left Saha up on his own, as an injury ravaged 34 year old, sometimes with a midfield of Neville & Heitinga as a supply line and the bile that would get hurled at him for "not working hard enough" or not burying immediately the first touch he'd got for 20 minutes.

I suppose the message would be - don't rely on unreliable, moody French strikers in their twilight years....

Incidentally, in a sign of the archival research lengths I'm going to thees days, have a look at Real's squad from when Anelka was there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999%E2%80%932000_Real_Madrid_C.F._season

Just classic names from start to finish. Makes anyone worth his salt want to start a game on Football Mangager under an eccentric Bolivian persona, go a mid-to-low table outift and get hammered 1-5 by them, whilst drawing solace from the fact that there looked promising signs from the forward line of erratically drawn together free agents.

Last Season

The original tactician

Never went did I? Was suffering from my annual one-eye-blind-spell and spent the day listening to Radio 4 in the dark. So I'm probably in the unique position of my abiding memories of that 2-1 win with a Baines double (one cracker, one pen) being how fucked up Albert Speer was as he lived out his sentence at Spandau prison (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ryklg) with his flowers and endless marches.

As stated at the time, it was a personal low-point for me when The Archers (which I never listen to) came on in the evening and i realised 'oh, nadgers, i've already heard this once' as it became apparent it was a repeat of the afternoon edition. 

They were a funny old crowd though weren't they them lot?

 Despite there being literally thousands of biographies dedicated to the main characters on all sides, its very rare that something captures the mixture of personal oddness, egos, fears and quirks that the Big Name Nazis, Stalin, Churchill et al brought to the most uniquely perilous set of circumstances the world's ever seen. And if it is going to happen, lets be honest, its not going to be in a hastily assembled blog purporting to preview Everton v West Brom......

Classic Game

Not a crop of games even the Everton marketing department at their most cringe-worthy could consider bringing out a box-set of. I will eschew temptation to carry on with last week's Duncan theme and say his last game/goal - the first YouTube from behind the goal video I was ever aware of incidentally (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu2sMtz65v0)  as one of the comments highlights "funny az fuk wot gets sed" - and go because of the oddly appropriate timing for Everton 2 West Brom 1 in August 2004, with Leon Osman getting two very early on in his career.

The link being, that 9 years to the day ago, the game was played under the shadow of an impending bid by United for our star player and a defiant sense of "we'll carry on regardless" that seemed to run through proceedings. At that time, of course it was the pursuit of Rooney that was going on in the background.

There are no words available to do justice to how far on the 'other side of the fence' the Moyesiah is now - and also none to describe the amount to fuck he can get.

Despite a very impressive win last week (although I was relatively un-sobre enough to be absolutely convinced they won 4-0 having sat about 5 metres from the screen it was being shown on) I still get "Ben Swain going on Newsnight" vibes from him - he thinks he knows the lines, he thinks he knows he to bat away the questions, but I dont think he really does, and I think him thinking he's got it down will end up making things worse for him.

I dont want to go on about a former manager  too much, but his recent Quintesson-like ability to about face act is really quite remarkable face, its interesting that he has actually been called  on his gobshitery -  with the commentariat in general  surprisingly keen to highlight his comments from the Lescott-to-City saga, and the yawning gap in his bid last week.

What I wanted to do here was tie-in to the '04 match and find some quotes from Moyes about ensuring value was paid and that Everton shouldnt cave in just because United had deigned to take an interest in one of our chaps, but it actaully only led me to some Aresnal forum where everyone was saying Rooney was over-hyped and worth £10m at most.....

And, yeah, Martinez signing someone who was out of contract, someone from a different team entirely, and someone by paying the release fee contractually agreed is exactly the same.....

"He is English and if you want to buy English you have to pay a higher premium.
"We don't want to lose him as he's our best player, but if we do the only way is at the top price and the value we want."
David Moyes August 2004.

Oh look, something did turn up.
Fuck off Moyes.

Prediction
Making the foolhardy move to over-estimate the value of one good performance - like sticking someone in at number 3 the next innings after a flukey 40-odd down the order in a losing cause - I've decided that after bewilderingly calling it spot-on last week, I'm promoting this 'feature' to top billing.

Having said that, I will be in the middle of Scotland gallivanting about as the game's being played so I will be distant from my failure if it all falls apart, which means this will be the first Saturady first home game of the season i've missed since 1998 (I think!)

I was encouraged by the performance at Norwich, thought we always went for the win and the signal that picking Barkley to start sent out was carried on in the rest of the game. The only quibble was that, apart from the lead up to Coleman's goal, Jelavic, then Kone when he came on (and annoyed me - with the utterly superfluous "A." on his shirt - in case people thought he was one of those other Kones in the squad. Maybe it was just in case people thought he was that crazy-wild kid army loon who was flavour of the month for a bit then vanished. LOL. Now, that's quite a weak jokey reference to that, but during the game when I expressed my displeasure at such an unneccasarily printed character, it was suggested by someone that it was to stop him getting confused with the cones in training. And we laughed heartily & genuinley at that, so when i'm saying 'oh, we played ever so well!!' bear my 'relaxed' state in mind ) never looked like getting in.

That said, maybe the balance was moved in our favour as Mirrallas, Barkley and others got more chance to have a crack than they would have if everything was channelled into getting the striker in, definitley Coleman & Baines had excellent games and caused plenty of problems - in general the wider we play the betteer I think.

Defensivley, although Norwich looked like they could get behind us a few times, by-and-large we didnt look to me as though Martinez's intrsuctions have been "become Gary Caldwell", although their first goal was too soft to be happening very often.

I cant see anything in this West Brom team (signing of the decade Shane Long aside) that we should be worried about though - in what should be a fairly defiant atmosphere. I'd start with same team and excpect us to win comfortably. 2-0 to Everton, with Baines missing a pen just to throw in a bit of intrigue.

Tall Drink Of Water She's A Norfolk Waterfall

Football season returns, and with it one of thee most sparsley updated & least missed blogs going......in a special all-new extra-loose format!

The Game
Can't remember the last time I saw Norwich play and the only action I've seen of Everton's pre-season was a 2 min video of the Under 19s drawing 1-1 in Betis, on my phone, whilst waiting in the foyer/lobby at work - both goals were really nice moves worked up from the back and neatly finished, but I dont think this offers too many clues as to how things are going to go over the next nine months -  so for a full tactical run-down its fair to say there's probably better places to go.

I'm quite glad about my lack of revision as far as Everton go though, as

i) non-competitive football is high on the list of things that could just be culled from TV without any value whatsover being lost
ii) watching the games just seesm to have made people miserable earlier than usual. Both Greg O'Keefe in the Echo & Mark O'Brien (thisisnotfootball.co.uk) were pretty pissy about the win(!) over Betis' "over 19s" on Sunday.

I'm sure the game was pretty uninspiring stuff, but its a pretty accepted Everton thing that this 'traditional' home friendly is a total waste of time - there have been two 0-1 defeats against similar opponents in fairly recent seasons without any of the negativity. I suppose any change to the extent there's been in Moyes leaving and Martinez coming in will make people look at things in a different way, but I'm of a very broadly supportive view of the new regime and if we keep the same squad as we have now, can only see us finishing 6-8th again.

Norwich have apparently bought well, with 'that Leroy Fer' who we wanted in January but failed his medical, Hooper off Celtic and this Ricky Van Wolfswinkel guy (right):

As far as I can tell, the two strikers are fixing the mistakes they made last January in getting in the absolutely dreadful Becchio off Leeds and Kei Kamara - who scored a total of one goal between them (see below) up til May. More goals, then, has to a likely result - although certain blog co-owner's predications of them making up a 19 point gap on us seems less on the cards to me.

For what's it worth (ie not much) I think it will be an open game and if I had to bet, I'd go 2-2 with Everton playing well and maybe doing something annoying like throwing away a 2-0 lead.

Last Season

One of the least enjoyable venues for one of the least enjoyable halfs of Everton. Watched it, breaking a self-imposed exile from Cuffs on The High Street to watch a 1-0 up stroll turn into a spirit-sapping 1-2 defeat following the inexplicable tactical switch to take off the only striker we had on and try to hang on to the slender lead in a 4-6-0 set-up.

Both games against these last season were exactly why I was never signed-up to the In Moyes We Trust battalion (1-0 up at home, no changes, no going for the 2nd. 90th minute inevitable equaliser followed by reactionary gesture substitution of putting Vellios on in the 91st minute) - and why I do think there's room for improvement. The pressure and lack of keeping the ball up the other end paving the way for Kamara and Grant Holt to score horrible goals and leave me saying we got what we deserved whilst some of the more rabid patrons joined Moyes in blaming the ref for playing too much stoppage time.

Obviously, I've actually stated just now that I think the same kind of thing might happen, but hopefully that would come from failure to shut-up shop rather than doing it unnecessarily, too soon, and unsuccessfully.

Info on Cuffs from http://www.inapub.co.uk/venues/cuffs/liverpool/l158he/11323

Facilities available:

General: Real Ale 

Pub Sports:Poker

Events:Karaoke, Quiz

Location: City Centre

Food times: Any time

The nearest thing to a Real Ale i've ever seen there is a Tetleys, its not City Centre, and the rest is pure fantasy based on my intermittent ventures there over the last decade

Jelavic

The player who was bafflingly taken off was the Croatian One-Touch specialist, who despite losing all remnants of form last season is probbaly my favourite player in the current squad. Even amid ignoring all the friendly buisness I managed a smile at seeing him spoaching a few goals.

Hopefully he will be the first choice striker as to my eyes he's a class and a bit above Anichebe & Kone. If we are going to create more cahnces in general then he shouldbe in there - its interesting the way when a player did well and the perceptions people have can be shifted. Everyone agreed he had a rough time last season but he still got some vital goals and his record (although pretty average) of 8 in thirty odd games was excatly the same as Big Vic - who in general was seen to have had a really good time of it.

Jelavic is sound by me anyway.

Classic Game
Bringing together all the elements from above, a match at Carrow Road, watched in a grot-hole converted police station, with a 2-0 lead squandered and a vital contribution from a not-everyone's-cup-of-tea but coll-as-fuck-to-me striker.....Norwich 2 Everton 3 from October 2004. Kilbane & Bent put Everton totally in control , it went 2-2 before Ferguson nudged home a minimalist classic of a towering header to snatch the win.

Talking of uninspring management, I remember being absolutley certain Norwich would go down when the one-man charisma typhoon that is Nigel Worthington said in his after-match interview that he "never really thought they could go on to win" despite them having a nothing-special Everton line-up totally rattled and the crowd rocking at 2-2 - if he didnt think they could win then, then it wa shard to see when he would....

Ed Balls
Hopefully I will be able to shoe-horn in a reference in every one of these (if there are any more like), but this is an easy one:
http://www.edballs.co.uk/blog/?p=3199

a by-all-accounts very knowledgebale Norwich fan as well as being one of my favourite names on the scene, it has to be said that he and Labour are having a poor time of it at the moment. 

Mark Steel's column in the Independent today is basically right - he does his trademark thing of thinking of one funny comparison ("It'd be like if..."), then stretching it that bit too far so that you end up thinking 'yeah, its not actaully like that is it though mate?'  - but the general point that the party's reluctance to come out hard against the Government has now reached a tipping point is spot on. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/mark-steel-is-ed-milibands-labour-party-prepared-to-do-or-say-anything-at-all-8763544.html 

As a member and from the grudgingly-accepting of the need fro them to play some issues a bit less radically than would be ideal, even I am a bit confused as to why they have been so silent and so almost deliberatley easy to ignore of late. Balls went to the game with Andy Burnham a few years ago, and I think they played up front together in the Labour v The Press match a while ago but from the hints in the Guardian interview with Burnham last week it sounded as though they're unlikely to cosying up next to Delia and Stephen Fry tomorrow. 

 http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/09/labour-risks-defeat-coalition-warns-andy-burnham

Hopefully that's wrong and they get back working together and get the party's collective arse into gear again soon, and realising that they personally have to take responsibility for getting people interested, getting people engaged and getting the idea out there that they can make a differemce and are determined to do it. Because, as politicians go especially, they both surely as people realise that they are just not getting through currently. The imperative need for this is two-fold: 

i) the country is in serious danger of sleep-walking into sticking with the shower who are in power at the moment in the next election if Labour do play-down to their current suppine form, with absolutley horrible consequences for society 

and ii) even more paramount, we need really, as a nation, need more pictures like this:

Everton v Swindon 1994 Gary Ablett

Preamble
Very, very sad news about Gary Ablett. I'd be a bit surprised if anyone said he was their favourite player, but I remember him as being one of the few reliable & reliably available Everton players in my introduction to football - from 92-94 - when Everton were at best ramshackle.
Hopefully not to trivialise an upsetting, young death, this is the game i first thought of when i heard that Gary Ablett had died, maybe because its a similarly crisp, chilly January day....

Build up
Des Lynam - CLB/HWF
Mike Walker.....
"a great appointment" "the best thing that's ever happened at this club.."
Well, we can all go back and find things we've said that maybe weren't 100% true in hindsight but these chaps set a high-watermark for 'bad shout that'. In some bad early 90s sports-casual too.
Crowd 'One Mike Walker!!!'. I'd cringe if i didn't not go to this game, still I think recovering from a hideous 0-1 defeat to West Ham on New Year's Day followed by an all-nighter playing Batman on the Megadrive at my cousin's....
This in the days when MOTD went with one big game and really went with it, lengthy highlights, which got lucky here in an eight-goal thriller, otherwise the 25 mins allocated could take some padding..

02.47 ~ nice turn there by Ablett, self-parodic twisty turney dribble by Beagrie, whose shot is blocked but the move is salvaged by Horne & Ward, Jackson gets in behind, Cottee lays it back and John Ebbrell slots in an atypically classy finish.
1-0.

Brett Angell, imovable from all Everton Worst Players lists and with sound reason. Clive Tyledsley just said on commentary he'd been out of the Southend team since early December. So we signed someone who wanst getting a game for Southend?! Someone who also had already been on loan at us once and in their only game lost 1-5 against Norwich. From that its not really a surprise that he was somewhat underwhelming is it...

06.20 ~ after an iffy looking period where Swindon could have got a goal, it looks like its a bit against the run of play when we double our lead. Angell, silencing his post-facto internet wise-ass critics, hold the ball up, lays it off to Beagrie. Somehow Swindon fail to get onto the fcat that he's going to jink inside onto his right and shoot. He does just that and gets off a shot that you'd expect the keeper to do better with - if you had any preconceptions about Nicky Hammond at all other than 'rubbish' - but Michael Rappaport spills it & Ebbrell rolls it across for Tony Cottee to tap-in.
2-0 (Half-Time)

08.20 ~ after a bit of waffle about how much fans & Mike Walker are going to put style ahead of results, presumably as an expectation setter for Vinny Samways' arrival, Cottee latches onto a long ball and thwacks a good effort back off the crossbar.
09.00 ~ from that corner, Swindon clear in the ensuing midfield melee, Andy Mutch elbows Ebbrell and his gnarled, horrible face is rightly sent off. As Tyledlsy quips "not many people will have too Mutch sympathy for him"
10.30 ~ two up versus ten men, Everton inevitably decide to ease-off and the crowd are getting growly even before Summerbee skins Hinchcliffe and puts in an excellent cross which is headed in by John Moncur
2-1

12.30 ~ classy play by Ablett leads to a counter-attack, then corner which Cottee nearly turns in. Swindon then go up the other end, and Ian Snodin (who I never liked) attempts an hubristic outside of the foot flick which he was never good enough to anywhere on the pitch on the edge of his own box, giving the ball away to his not-really name-sake Paul Bodin, who slots home with aplomb
2-2

14.40 ~ a 45 year old Terry Fenwick clatters Beagrie on the left. Beagrie takes on the free-kick and from under the Nicks Shoes hoarding....yup, cuts inside onto his right foot, floats the ball in and after Jackson's header hits the bar Ablett is on hand to smuggle the ball home. A scruffy but vital goal. After the replays you can just hear a slightly imperfect 'oh gary, gary..gary,gary,gary, gary aaa-belllll-ettt' chant.
3-2

16.00 ~ This would have been taking the piss. Swindon come straight back at us and Jan Aage Fjortoft neraly levels again with an outrageous volley. Then lets himself down a bit with a flambouyantly camp wave of the hand afterwards.'Scorpion Dry Lager'. I bet that was nice.
16.30 ~ Strong midfield battling by Ebbrell & a good ball gets it to Mark Ward's feet. Ward, who I remember being absolutley loathed by the pensioner-centric Lower Bullens group my granddad was part of at this point, ignores their 'you're no Tommy Eglington' unimpressedness to slot a nice ball through to Cottee who puts the ball away & game to bed.
4-2

17.30 ~ clive Tyledsley uses the word "spectacular" twice in one sentence to decsribe Beagrie robbing a labouring Fenwick to rampage forward and lash a shot over. Immediatley afterwards, Ward pings another ball through to Cottee, the ball break to Ebbrell who balloons a shot over an unguarded net. Noteable mainly for how much he wouldnt be allowed to be playing on now with blood all over his face.
18.30 ~ slightly obnoxious crowd 'wahey'ing ends with another good link-up between Ward & Cottee with teh winger being pushed over for a penalty. Further interplay betwixt the diddy ex-West Ham players results in Cottee ("whhhhhhhhy not??") going for his hat-trick nad putting it away despite the goalie gettiung both hands to it.
5-2

20.25 Stuart Barlow replaces Cottee, and its played into acres of space on the right. From his cross, Angell & Ebbrell keep the ball alive for Beagrie to head in and unfurl his trademark - spectacular - celebration.
6-2

Everton 'basking in the glory of a famous day' is the commentary sign-off...'and in the longer-term, who knows what (Mike Walker) can achieve here?'

*spoiler alert* It didnt go that well.

Its easy to look back and get fed up of Moyes' inflexibility & predictability, but when you look back at this less than stellar couple of years it easier to appreciate that. Players just used to turn up after not being near the team for months (Warzycha, Mo Johnston), signings were complete scattergun affairs (Kenny Sansom, Preki)...and in succesive games three QPR players got hat-tricks against us in scores of 2-4,3-5, 0-3.

Gary Ablett had a great career and was one of the better players for Everton in a period that was essentilly awful, but will always be remembered fondly by me & people of my age. RIP.

Joe Scott’s Take On ~ “Turtle Master” by Jakub Kujawa

Well, firstly, as a painting this is very – extraordinarily – green. The focus is on this Asiatic character who is saddled atop an emerald-skinned beast. The title is a slight red herring here though, because he/it isn't a turtle. He's a...um, well a kind of newt with legs and horns. I think the shell on his back is not a natural part of him – rather it's been grafted on in some way by his chief - the true Turtle Master. In which case it is likely a scalp from a previous triumph.

Alternatively, it could be a prized souvenir from a pet turtle he used to cherish, and perhaps the death of which prompted him to assume the Turtle Master title and attempt to wreak vengeance. I think it's beyond what can be deciphered from this piece how he came to pair with and harness this creature, but as I say, I'm of the opinion that the big shell was attached on by the Master to his steed, and that it was happenstance that this then also provided a smooth yet solid saddle for him.

"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out." Korean Proverb

We're intruders in some sort of lush, mountainous valley, the fence on the left seems overgrown and unlikely to prevent any entry or passage by the most inoffensive of souls, let alone provide defence against this amphibious marauder.

I'm not convinced that the batch of tiny turtle/terrapins are fleeing the Master (his back-pack looks like it could be filled with shells of previously snared animals of their ilk), although that could be what's going on. I think it's slightly more likely that the depiction is of them as part of a horde or army, rolling and sliding ever forward to capture new pastures for the Turtle Master to claim as his realm.

He's wearing a very nice hat, slightly too short trousers (possibly tactically selected, as you'd imagine that grass gets quite dewy), and a kind-of rusty orange pull-over. I can't imagine that this is his full Turtle Master uniform, if so it's mightily underwhelming, so another possibility is that the protrusion from his ruc-sac is part of the garb he puts on when he goes into action. My deduction would be that this depicts the troupe en-route to a later appointment.

"Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a moustache: You won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you." Ajahn Chah


The ogre-ish animal he is straddling wears a semi-clownish expression; a miss-leading Land Before Time style goofiness will likely have lured in and snared unsuspecting foes before now.

He seems to have been fitted with a very standard reign-like contraption to the mouth by the Master, the apparent flimsiness of which leads me to assume that he is at least partially tame and in league with his rider – not being controlled against his will. But he does look a touch dozy and easily distractible, so it makes sense for the Master to have the option of reminding periodically him who's boss.

"The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex. I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile." Ogden Nash

The Master is smoking a very thin, threadlike pipe. Nothing in the picture explains what substance he is enjoying – if you take the position that he is in fact in pursuit of the flock of miniature beings, to feast upon their fleshy innards, scrape clean their shells , add them to his haul and continue to conduct a purge of all turtle-like things on the continent, then it would not be too much of a leap to imagine him grinding the bones of his unfortunate prey into a fine 'snuff' and greedily gulping in their fumes to "feel at one with his quarry".

It's a striking vision certainly, but as earlier stated, not one that I necessarily subscribe to.

An added ambiguity is the extremely dainty little cow-bell-esque device he's brandishing – a petite, fancy embellishment at odds with his no-frills, man-with-a-job-to-do demeanour. One interpretation is that this is a freshly secured trophy: he and his troupe have just vanquished the previous occupants of this desolate domain and the bell-ended baton pried from the erstwhile ruler of the land. Another is that he just has a soft-spot for pretty sticks that make a jaunty little jingle-jangle as he rides along.

"Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." The Bible


A lush, beguiling work which demands the viewer use their imagination at every stage.