For some reason, a really high number of cool things have happened, or been reported, today. I'm talking really cool things, like immortality and alien life. Not even kidding. Take a look.
Did NASA Discover Life on One of Saturn's Moons?
Ageing has been reversed in mice, now for humans?
Over-blown video about it here
Growing a windpipe from stem-cells has been described as 'embarrasingly simple', the speed with which it was inserted was limited by London traffic rather than the time it took to make.
Then, not so cool but something that feels important and is slightly disturbing:
FIFA is an extremely corrupt organisation. This makes me sad.
Lastly, more football, sorry, but Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid was pretty cool too.
Science is awesome; humans are awesome
And once more the brilliance of the sport of football is almost overshadowed by the god-awful mess that goes on off the pitch. Wankers at every level.
Tuesday 30 November 2010
Thursday 25 November 2010
Why Spurs Are The Best Team To Support
It occurred to me recently that Spurs are best team in the country to support. I'm not saying they're the best, far from it, but just the most bloody entertaining, certainly in the last four years or so. Dad picked the right team. Here's why:
1) We don't do boring. Thanks to our habit of buying excellent attackers (Berbatov (he's gone but for the purpose for this blog he counts), Defoe, Pavlyuchenko, Bale, Crouch etc. etc. etc.) and good but eternally injured defenders (King, Woodgate) we concede a lot and score even more. Things have calmed down a little bit compared with 2007/8 where 4-4 draws were not uncommon - Arsenal Villa and Chelsea spring to mind - but we just don't do bore-draws. It's not easy on the nerves but it's great fun at the end of the day. 4-4 is always more fun than 1-0.
2) We're a thoroughly English club (relatively speaking). Daniel Levy is one of the few English chairmen in the Premier League, and certainly the richest of the lot. Not only is he liberal with his cash, but he also runs the club like a business, which, while it may sound dry, means we have among the best financial structure in the league. There are no £400m pound debts here. Furthermore, he's a very smart man: the £8m capture of Rafael Van Der Vaart was a stunning piece of business: the man is superb. Our team is also far more English (or British at least) than perhaps any other club in the top division. Unencumbered by injuries, our first team would include 8 British players (King, Woodgate/Dawson, Hutton, Lennon, Huddlestone, Bale, Crouch, Defoe), which is none too shabby.
3) Defeat makes victory all the sweeter. There are few other clubs that can say they have lost to Wigan and Bolton either side of thrashing Inter Milan (or something similar, obviously). Losing is annoying but it keeps our feet on the ground. Whilst we continue to slip up the club and its fans won't gain the arrogant sense of entitlement that others do (ahem, Arsenal and United), and won't sack the manager if even just a few such slip ups occur (ahem, Man City and Chelsea).
4) Heroes emerge from the unlikeliest places. In dire moments a strangely large number of players will step their game up and do something unexpected. Look to Alan Hutton, a largely ignored player, against Stoke (I think) a few weeks back where he scored one and won a penalty; Danny Rose scoring an absolute pearler against Arsenal in one of the crucial final few league matches of the season that helped secure a Champions League berth; Gareth Bale coming from almost nowhere to be the hottest property in Europe; a rare Huddlestone howitzer: there really are a lot of them.
5) We don't seem to have any twats at the club. 'Arry may occasionally show questionable morals, but on the other hand he is refreshingly candid and bullshit free. There are no Drogba or Ronaldo characters who dive at any opportunity and throw tantrums when decisions go against them. Of course I don't know them personally, but there is a distinct lack of egotism.
6) There are several under-appreciated players. No one seems to have realised that Huddlestone is without doubt the best player of long balls in the whole world. A drastic statement I think you'll agree, but hear me out. There are better passers - Xabi, Alonso, Iniesta, Fabregas etc. - but none of them could hit this. I hate the phrase but describing him as the team's "quarterback" is a pretty good description. His ability to predict an attacker's run and drive a ball with frankly unbelievable accuracy is astonishing; even more astonishing is that hardly anyone has picked up on this. Perhaps it's because he has been lumbered with a (fair) slow and cumbersome tag, but in the last year he has become an excellent shield for the back-four and a solid base from which to launch attacks. Liverpool were foolish not to place a bid when Alonso left, he would have filled the void more ably than nearly anyone.
Gomes is another under-appreciated gem. Just like Spurs itself, he makes just enough errors for the wider football-watching public to think he's crap, when in actual fact at his best he's in the top three in the league. I think it's fair to say his run of appalling form from the tail-end of the Juande Ramos era and the first few months of Redknapp's managership and the reputation that came with it has benefited both him and the club. No bids have come in that could unsettle him, and no one wants to buy him. His game isn't perfect but we wouldn't have won a place in Europe without his saves against Arsenal and Chelsea.
7) Gareth Bale. Holy Hell, this guy is amazing. No other player has generated so many column inches based purely on his footballing ability since, well, no one that I can remember - not even Ronaldo was hyped to this extent. The Fourth Estate has been singing his praises from the rooftops. His playing style is very similar to Ronaldo's, but whereas CR7 was critisised for going missing during big games, the opposite is true for Bale. He tends to falter against your lower-ranked teams but steps up and humbles the big boys. I've already mentioned consecutive defeats of Arsenal and Chelsea, but he's done it to Inter in spectacular fashion, Arsenal again, and several others that escape me for the time being.
1) We don't do boring. Thanks to our habit of buying excellent attackers (Berbatov (he's gone but for the purpose for this blog he counts), Defoe, Pavlyuchenko, Bale, Crouch etc. etc. etc.) and good but eternally injured defenders (King, Woodgate) we concede a lot and score even more. Things have calmed down a little bit compared with 2007/8 where 4-4 draws were not uncommon - Arsenal Villa and Chelsea spring to mind - but we just don't do bore-draws. It's not easy on the nerves but it's great fun at the end of the day. 4-4 is always more fun than 1-0.
2) We're a thoroughly English club (relatively speaking). Daniel Levy is one of the few English chairmen in the Premier League, and certainly the richest of the lot. Not only is he liberal with his cash, but he also runs the club like a business, which, while it may sound dry, means we have among the best financial structure in the league. There are no £400m pound debts here. Furthermore, he's a very smart man: the £8m capture of Rafael Van Der Vaart was a stunning piece of business: the man is superb. Our team is also far more English (or British at least) than perhaps any other club in the top division. Unencumbered by injuries, our first team would include 8 British players (King, Woodgate/Dawson, Hutton, Lennon, Huddlestone, Bale, Crouch, Defoe), which is none too shabby.
3) Defeat makes victory all the sweeter. There are few other clubs that can say they have lost to Wigan and Bolton either side of thrashing Inter Milan (or something similar, obviously). Losing is annoying but it keeps our feet on the ground. Whilst we continue to slip up the club and its fans won't gain the arrogant sense of entitlement that others do (ahem, Arsenal and United), and won't sack the manager if even just a few such slip ups occur (ahem, Man City and Chelsea).
4) Heroes emerge from the unlikeliest places. In dire moments a strangely large number of players will step their game up and do something unexpected. Look to Alan Hutton, a largely ignored player, against Stoke (I think) a few weeks back where he scored one and won a penalty; Danny Rose scoring an absolute pearler against Arsenal in one of the crucial final few league matches of the season that helped secure a Champions League berth; Gareth Bale coming from almost nowhere to be the hottest property in Europe; a rare Huddlestone howitzer: there really are a lot of them.
5) We don't seem to have any twats at the club. 'Arry may occasionally show questionable morals, but on the other hand he is refreshingly candid and bullshit free. There are no Drogba or Ronaldo characters who dive at any opportunity and throw tantrums when decisions go against them. Of course I don't know them personally, but there is a distinct lack of egotism.
6) There are several under-appreciated players. No one seems to have realised that Huddlestone is without doubt the best player of long balls in the whole world. A drastic statement I think you'll agree, but hear me out. There are better passers - Xabi, Alonso, Iniesta, Fabregas etc. - but none of them could hit this. I hate the phrase but describing him as the team's "quarterback" is a pretty good description. His ability to predict an attacker's run and drive a ball with frankly unbelievable accuracy is astonishing; even more astonishing is that hardly anyone has picked up on this. Perhaps it's because he has been lumbered with a (fair) slow and cumbersome tag, but in the last year he has become an excellent shield for the back-four and a solid base from which to launch attacks. Liverpool were foolish not to place a bid when Alonso left, he would have filled the void more ably than nearly anyone.
Gomes is another under-appreciated gem. Just like Spurs itself, he makes just enough errors for the wider football-watching public to think he's crap, when in actual fact at his best he's in the top three in the league. I think it's fair to say his run of appalling form from the tail-end of the Juande Ramos era and the first few months of Redknapp's managership and the reputation that came with it has benefited both him and the club. No bids have come in that could unsettle him, and no one wants to buy him. His game isn't perfect but we wouldn't have won a place in Europe without his saves against Arsenal and Chelsea.
7) Gareth Bale. Holy Hell, this guy is amazing. No other player has generated so many column inches based purely on his footballing ability since, well, no one that I can remember - not even Ronaldo was hyped to this extent. The Fourth Estate has been singing his praises from the rooftops. His playing style is very similar to Ronaldo's, but whereas CR7 was critisised for going missing during big games, the opposite is true for Bale. He tends to falter against your lower-ranked teams but steps up and humbles the big boys. I've already mentioned consecutive defeats of Arsenal and Chelsea, but he's done it to Inter in spectacular fashion, Arsenal again, and several others that escape me for the time being.
Sunday 14 November 2010
Student Protest pondering
I was at the student protest in London this past Wednesday. It was not only did it stir up some passion within me about education, but it was also a brilliantly fun day, despite the ludicrous amount of time it took to get back to Southampton.
Talking to other students, reading journalism and getting into squabbles on the Guardian's comment sections has been revealing, and even though I was right there at the foot of 30 Millbank I wasn't fully convinced that the raise in tuition fees was entirely unjustified - yes, people should have the right to be able to study what they want regardless of cost, but on the other hand cuts have to happen, and no one seems to be able to offer any other valid suggestions.
However, something crossed my mind (or at least I think so; it might have been someone else's point) which is this: the tuition fee rise is a result of the recession, the government needs a quick buck so let's make the students pay. Fair? Maybe, but not the point. The thing is, we are not paying cash up front, but recieving loans. Degrees take a minimum of three years, combined with the fact that it won't affect anyone until the 2012 batch, means that that the government won't be seeing any return until 2015. That's not even taking into account that a graduate has to be earning more than £21k p.a. before it gets payed back, and even then it will only be a trickle. I can't see how this will help the UK emerge from the recession; as a long-term investment I would imagine it is financially sound (presuming the number of students remain the same), but in the short-term it seems it would have a negative impact on the economy.
Moreover, the loans themselves come from the government so in between now and 2015 the university system will be an even greater financial burden than it already is. Perhaps I'm missing something here - this point seems too obvious to have been overlooked by messrs Osbourne and Cable - but I can't see it. Enlighten me in the comments.
P.S. Anybody reading this that hasn't been to a large-scale protest before, I highly recommend it, even if you don't have any particular allegiance to a cause. It's so much fun, and something of an eye-opener - seeing 50'000 people getting fired up made me realise that things actually do matter, and it's worth fighting for the people that are getting hit the worst.
Talking to other students, reading journalism and getting into squabbles on the Guardian's comment sections has been revealing, and even though I was right there at the foot of 30 Millbank I wasn't fully convinced that the raise in tuition fees was entirely unjustified - yes, people should have the right to be able to study what they want regardless of cost, but on the other hand cuts have to happen, and no one seems to be able to offer any other valid suggestions.
However, something crossed my mind (or at least I think so; it might have been someone else's point) which is this: the tuition fee rise is a result of the recession, the government needs a quick buck so let's make the students pay. Fair? Maybe, but not the point. The thing is, we are not paying cash up front, but recieving loans. Degrees take a minimum of three years, combined with the fact that it won't affect anyone until the 2012 batch, means that that the government won't be seeing any return until 2015. That's not even taking into account that a graduate has to be earning more than £21k p.a. before it gets payed back, and even then it will only be a trickle. I can't see how this will help the UK emerge from the recession; as a long-term investment I would imagine it is financially sound (presuming the number of students remain the same), but in the short-term it seems it would have a negative impact on the economy.
Moreover, the loans themselves come from the government so in between now and 2015 the university system will be an even greater financial burden than it already is. Perhaps I'm missing something here - this point seems too obvious to have been overlooked by messrs Osbourne and Cable - but I can't see it. Enlighten me in the comments.
P.S. Anybody reading this that hasn't been to a large-scale protest before, I highly recommend it, even if you don't have any particular allegiance to a cause. It's so much fun, and something of an eye-opener - seeing 50'000 people getting fired up made me realise that things actually do matter, and it's worth fighting for the people that are getting hit the worst.
Saturday 13 November 2010
A Critical Analysis of 'Eh Marine!'
As part and parcel with my new Film & English degree, I've been exposed to a lot of great films in the past few weeks - we're talking Casablanca, Rear Window and Singin' In The Rain - but one stand head and shoulders above the rest. What's amazing about this film is the sheer amount of brilliance encapsulated within just six short seconds. You'll laugh, you'll cry (with laughter), you'll press replay umpteen times. What is this film? It is, of course, Eh Marine!
Eh Marine! exhibits some deceptively complex mise-en-scene. Notice the stark contrast of our two protagonists; one so manic and energetic - undoubtedly a parody the gurning and goofy Cosmo Brown - and the other so unsuspecting, so mundane. Caliboss99 is clearly a skilful manipulator of his audience. We automatically favour our anti-hero over Marine: he looks like a guy that really knows how to party...check out that killer jiggle/head-wobble combination and tell me he wouldn't give Andrew WK a run for his money in the party stakes. Marine is such a drab character, we relish her getting one smartly upside the head. Her clothes: drab; her expression: dull; her repsonse: a grunt - everything about her is asking for a whipping.
It's all about context though, really. What causes the bouncy guy to strike down upon her with great vengeance (though not so much furious anger)? Why is he so bouncy? How did he get that slap so damn right? As for the latter, I would suggest it lies in the follow-through: that was a proper pimp-slap and make no mistake. The guy clearly has experience; p'raps Marine's a whore and she's been skimming some hoe money off the top. What better way to punish a girl than by brutally smacking her on camera? Don't answer that question.
Eh Marine! exhibits some deceptively complex mise-en-scene. Notice the stark contrast of our two protagonists; one so manic and energetic - undoubtedly a parody the gurning and goofy Cosmo Brown - and the other so unsuspecting, so mundane. Caliboss99 is clearly a skilful manipulator of his audience. We automatically favour our anti-hero over Marine: he looks like a guy that really knows how to party...check out that killer jiggle/head-wobble combination and tell me he wouldn't give Andrew WK a run for his money in the party stakes. Marine is such a drab character, we relish her getting one smartly upside the head. Her clothes: drab; her expression: dull; her repsonse: a grunt - everything about her is asking for a whipping.
It's all about context though, really. What causes the bouncy guy to strike down upon her with great vengeance (though not so much furious anger)? Why is he so bouncy? How did he get that slap so damn right? As for the latter, I would suggest it lies in the follow-through: that was a proper pimp-slap and make no mistake. The guy clearly has experience; p'raps Marine's a whore and she's been skimming some hoe money off the top. What better way to punish a girl than by brutally smacking her on camera? Don't answer that question.
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