Cheats

The World Cup ended on Sunday, this would normally be a time of introspection, blanking out England's latest failures and saluting the victors who through their genius triumphed over lesser souls. I can't do that today. Italy winning the World Cup has left me with a empty feeling thumping against the pit of my stomach. The sport's champions reflect every nasty wrong currently seen in every league, from the Gods of the game to mortals who hack at each other every Sunday. To misquote the Welsh football commentator Peter Jones;

"Football has died. The Cheats have won."*

I can not take pleasure in the Italians winning, their victory is based not on Marcello Lippi's tactics, but diving and violent play. That FIFA cowed and allowed de Rossi to participate after his deliberate elbow on the USA's Brian McBride is nothing short of disgraceful. Yet why am I surprised? FIFA are more concerned with preening than the good of the game. Italy have won the World Cup, but they are champions in cheating only.

Any player who dives should receive a retrospective red card and a 5 match ban. This would eradicate the cynical type of play that Italy have revelled in. Any player that urges another to be cautioned should be sent off and receive a 3 match ban. Players are gods only through the genius of the play, not the spin on the egos.

*The real quote is "Football has died. The hooligans have won" and was delivered whilst commentating for BBC Radio 2 on the 1985 European Cup Final at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels where 39 supporters were crushed to death. I don't wish to trivialise that awful event, but want to just highlight the emotion behind Italy's victory.

It was a long night....

Matt never one to miss getting laid next to 5 girls...oh and "Skateboard Guy"

It must be an Aussie thing...

Stewie!!!!!!!!!!!

A chapter meeting of the Hiroshima Methodist Club

Aussie Dancing - Marcus Style!!!

Stag Night in Fukuoka...Part 1

Here are some of the photos from the all night drinking and celebate (well...) boys night in Fukuoka to celebrate Nick's wedding...what number is weight watchers....

In the beginning....

...and at the end. (Ben, never one to complain you know...)

The Hiroshima "Bun in the Oven Club"

The Groom....

I'm actually in this one! Although what is Ben doing...?

They charge by the hour you know...

Matt has seen an Englishman!

Gripping....

The Boys, Black Mahjong & Missing Barn Doors.

[Well the Over 40's, (4), the Over 30's (2) and the Toddler (1)]

For more details about the night and debates over the obvious righteousness of World Cup World Qualifying Groups (comments), go to : David's Blog

Monkey Men?

Darwin's The Origin Of the Species is the seminal work in natural or scientific history. (Leaving EH Carr rapidly aside that is) It elevated the human race from the dark ages of Christian omnipotence and liberated European humanity from absurd biblical notions of creationism. His development of the theory of Natural Selection concluded that in simplistic terms, the dominant life form in a given situation would progress at the expense of one that did not have the suitable attributes to adapt and survive. Thus we are down to the last 8 teams in the World Cup, six of whom are previous winners.

England have failed to raise the rooftops, their supporters sing, chant, believe and buy little red & white flags in hope rather than through hard empirical evidence. But what is England's position in the footballing world? Are we like Darwin going to be remembered for one magnus opus - the 1966 World Cup, or is that just a seminal moment in the scope of our development? Can we become Shakespeare? Macbeth is a seminal work of English literature, but is not Hamlet his magnus opus? Shall 2006 join 1966? Or have we touched the stars already and now our fate is only to look at them in wonder?

Selection has concluded we are superior and luckier than others. Through either, it does not matter which, we are at this moment. The Portuguese await tomorrow, twice recently England has been vanquished, but we have re-emerged. Have we progressed from previous failures? Has nature acquired us with superior skills evolved from our origins? Tomorrow we will know. The games afoot...

Lucky Seven

Whilst trawling through the British Sunday newspapers today, I came across an article proposing that England's World Cup triumph was in the bag because the team was eerily entwined with the number 7. The paper suggested the following reasons:

1) England must win 7 games to win the trophy.

2) The following words all have 7 letters: winners, England, captain and Beckham.

3) The final's on Sunday, the 7th day of the week, in July, the 7th month of the year.

4) The English captain David Beckham will lift the trophy wearing the No.7 shirt
5) England won Group B with 7 points. They will now play Ecuador, which amazingly also has 7

letters in its name!

6) There have only ever been, wait for it, 7 full-time English coaches.

7) England's coach's first name, Svennis, has that's right - 7 letters!*

You must agree that the proof is overwhelming... all the above points are connected with the number 7. Regrettably what they don't explain is why England have played pathetically, disjointedly and seemingly without a coherent defensive system. (are you reading Mr Campbell?)

If the best an English publication can come up with for England's success neglects, form, questionable squad choices, injuries, tactics, ability and skill, whilst relying on numerology then two conclusions can be drawn: 1) England are screwed 2) British Tabloids seriously need new editors.

I await in hope that England can win tonight's game playing well and looking a well-oiled team, or failing that unrealistic expectation we win whilst avoiding a penalty duel as our record is, you could probably have guessed this one - Lost 7.

*From Saturday June 24th's Daily Mirror

England Exasperate (Again...)

Another World Cup game and another dull performance from England. As SS England continues to leak water at an alarming rate there are some obvious questions to as Capt. Smith, sorry Eriksson;

1) Do you have gambling debts to shady men with cockney accents? Otherwise why no Jermain Defoe?

2) Are you are a charlatan?

3) What is 2+ 2?

4) Are you aware how poor Beckham is playing? The odd cross here and there does not make up for glaring deficiencies, for example Sweden first's first goal was scored due to Beckham's inept defensive ability. Perhaps he saw a photo op....

England should get to the Quarter-Finals where they will play Argentina or Holland. Either way it is Good Night Vienna, or perhaps Berlin. Another "golden opportunity" lost....But hey think of the positives! Remember England have a new exciting coach to transform us....oh yeh, sorry that is not going to happen....

My Thoughts of the Week

Ancient Babylon fell more swiftly to the Persian Cyrus, but the fall from expectation has been far more painful for the England team. But which England team? Ahh, that this the nub of the gist because the answer is all of them. This week has been another painful one for "our" sporting heroes. The cricket team got thumped by Sri Lanka. The rugby team got whacked by Australia for the the 2nd time in 2 weeks. The football team managed to reverse traditional theory and play as 11 individuals rather than a team. Do you know what these results all had in common ? (apart from being inept and woeful performances that is) Yes, the plenitude of excuses that followed. Let us quickly trawl them.

Rugby

After England lost 43-18 to Australia, coach Andy "Haven't won in 5 matches" Robinson gave the following analysis: "The forward display was pretty impressive, and we had 63% possession." Come again? We were pretty impressive? Had 63% of possession? And still lost! There are many questions that could be raised here, firstly how can a team with the majority of ball in hand actually lose by 25pts? Or how a coach of a national side can make the above quote and not be sacked, but hey, remember there are always excuses...

Cricket

The euphoria of last years Ashes victory has long been replaced by the return of the usual dirge that English cricket has produced for the last 20 years. England lost to Sri Lanka in a ODI yesterday by 20 runs. Stand in for the Stand in Captain, Andrew Strauss offered the following post game review, "We didn't put the ball in the right areas, maybe we were striving too hard to take wickets and Sri Lanka took advantage of anything loose". OK run that by me again. England were striving too hard to take wickets. Umm forgive me for asking, but isn't that the bloody point! How can you strive too hard? Isn't this akin to being a little bit pregnant, either you are or aren't, either you try hard or you don't. It is a nothing comment and insults anybody who is desperately untalented, but dying for the opportunity to play professional sport. So England are missing players, so what? There are more English players than any other country in the world. We can' find 11 to win a game? Excuses...Excuses Excuses...

Football

Let me get the first part of the rant out the way. Sven Goran Eriksson the magnificently paid England manager picked 9, yes NINE midfielders for the England 23. Oh and 4 strikers. None of whom are what we could say were 100% at the moment, in either fitness, age or talent.

It does seem strange to criticise an England team that has 6pts from their first 2 group games. I have failed to recall how many "must win games" England have had over the years to avoid the embarrassment of not qualifying. Eriksson however, has any numerous amount of excuses to explain away England's current malaise. They are good ones as well, from "it was very hot out there" (vs Paraguay), well forgive me for raising such a pertinent question, but what exactly were you expecting in Germany in summer? The other cracker is the oft used "They put 10-men behind the ball", well it would then help enormously if our only tactic wasn't hoofing in the air to a 6ft 7" beanpole whose idea of a 6-yard volley is to hit the corner flag. Anyway, as I have said before, excuses...

English sport is lost in a continual myriad of failure explained away by erroneous lies. When our national teams lose, frequently, it is not because of the weather or the referee (unless he is Ecuadoran) it is simply because we are not good enough. Why is this so? The biggest contributor in all of our 3 national sports failures is the total of foreign players plying their craft in our various leagues. Arsenal had 2 English players from 11 in the Champions League final. How can this be good for the development of the English game?

This is not to adopt a xenophobic littler England-er mentally. I want the great players. Our own can learn from them. Eric Cantona altered Manchester United's mentally, helped alter revolutionalise part of their training exercises. Brian Lara's 501 for Warwickshire can only draw people to cricket. The guile of Phillipe Saint-Andre or the raw power and brutal talent of a Francois Pienaar helped English rugby move from the dark ages of the "57 old farts" to World Cup Champions.

English talent is being stunted by employing foreign players because they are cheaper to sign and wage than an English counterpart. By continuing this practice, the myopia of English sport is just going to increase. After all, Australia have already beaten us at football.

I finish this by recalling a Sean Connery quote. I would love it to be from Bond, after all there is something exquisite about a Scottish nationalist being super cool for England. No it is from the movie The Rock. Connery's character said roughly the following:

"Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and **** the Prom Queen"

Dick Cheney - Dark Wizard?

During one of my lessons this week a thought struck me about recent topical happenings. Whilst watching Harry Potter discover the power of magic I came to an obvious conclusion about political kidnapping, urgh sorry Extraordinary Rendition. These secret European prisons that are supposed to exist storing countless of dangerous foreign sounding names, well nobody has ever seen them - right? But they exist, camouflaged before our very eyes, hidden from the sight of everyday normal people co-existing in a strange quasi-life reality. Just, well it kind of reminded me of the magic used to hide Hogwarts School away from non-magic people. Do you think Dick Cheney has a cauldron for mixing evil potions in?

As no one actually reads this site I feel safe from ending up banged up in a castle's dark common room somewhere. Also I don't have a beard.

Out of the Red & into the Black...

The March Of Kenyon

For the first time this year Kenyon like Oswald Mosley moved from the Reds to Blacks. The end of his long march from the Cock-Eyed mahjong wilderness finally concluded with him residing in the motivational glory of the positive. Or to put it another way, he finished the night once more as top dog, with 3 figures in his win column and now is on +1 for the year. As the night ended, Kenyon seemed as content as an old man puffing a pipe and snoozing in a rocking chair contemplating his life's work.

There were 3 other mahjongers tonight, the old tough sake guzzling Noda, Jaime the mountain climber and a welcome return to the first lady of Cock-Eyed Mahjong, Eri - who was looking well. Hurley, the ringmaster, popped in briefly but was suffering a bit due to being ill. So, that ladies and gentlemen were the cast, but what of the twists and turns of the play...

The first two games have now settled into a recurring dream for Kenyon and a total nightmare for Jaime. The games follow the same pattern, Kenyon surging ahead into a commanding Devon Loch lead and Jaime getting thumped and sinking like a Russian submarine. No matter what tile Jaime chose, he got ronned. There was one particular incident when both Kenyon and Noda were stalking tiles like a lion in the Serengeti. Jaime was ducking and diving and praying that they ronned each other. Unfortunately, his safe tile options totally gone he decided that there were 3 possible tiles that looked a bit safer than his others. With a dash of bravado he threw his 4 bamboo to the wind...and got ronned by Kenyon. To make matters worse, it transpired that Jaime's entire hand contained dangerous tiles and no matter what he had thrown he would have been screwed. Change seats if you please!

As is now the custom, (usually Jaime mentions this in the first hand of the first game) everybody changes seats after 2 games. Kenyon drags his feet here as this usually starts his decline for the night. Eri had joined the table after the first game and so with Noda's totally incomprehensible system of moving seats (see earlier post) we shuffled our bottoms and re-seated ourselves. Immediately Jaime's luck changed!

The 3rd game of the night proved to be expensive for Eri and fortunate for Jaime. He had started this game -71 and was praying that his luck changed and with a cunning plan it most certainly did! Jaime had compiled a nice Kokushimsou tenpai wait, sadly it was glaringly obvious to Kenyona and Noda that was his hand. Noda wasn't playing though, so Jaime was relying on Eri having not played recently, and as such not noticing what he was doing. Sure enough Eri declared a north tile dollar and Jaime politely declared Ron. This combined with another yakuman hand left Jaime top for the game and nearly having deleted his losses. Eri decided to leave.

Two further more games were played quite quickly. Kenyon continued to finish in the positive, Noda quietly slid in the red and Jaime cam top in both games to leave him comfortably in 2nd place and eating into Hurley's overall 2nd place lead. The penultimate game was extremely close, Jaime pipping Kenyon by 1000 pts to claim top spot.

When all was said and done for the night, Kenyon like those pesky penguins had marched to top of the charts, Jaime had followed his regular evenings' play of getting himself into a hole and then managing to scramble out of it and Noda's decline continued. Eri's welcome back present was to end the night as the Hercules of Cock-Eyed MJ and hold the rest of our scores on her shoulders.

Scores for the Night

Kenyon +42 +59 +0 +2 +4 = +107
Jaime -54 -17 +64 +18 +32 = +43
Noda +12 -29 +1 -20 -36 = -72
Eri -13 -65 = -78