Respect
ITV must be owned by the Murdochracy.
Take the build-up to last night's heavily rigged match between Barcelona and Chelsea/#############################.
The prelude to the prankery saw Steve Ryder and his ebullient hair piece interviewing Bolo Zenden and Andy Townsend at the pitchside.
Suddenly, the Catalunyan 'National' Anthem struck up and 93,000 sang along.
Our three heroes, after a recognition that the said tune was of regional significance, simply spoke right across the musical offering.
But the reason that ITV is BSkyB-like in its offensiveness came minutes later after Zenden had tried to indicate that the Champions League theme tune is of equivalent status to the Catalan hymn.
As the teams entered the field of Teutonic corruption, Els Segadors blasted out again.
On this occasion, ITV simply cut to the adverts in mid-verse.
Would this xenophobic effort have been repeated if it was the English colonial anthem that was being played?
Very Very White
For reasons that remain, now, as unfathomable as they were at the time, I found myself watching the last twenty minutes of the neohyperreality known as the BAFTA Awards.
It was only when Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders won their best female comedy duo ever award (who were the competitors?), and the camera focused on Dawn's gushing hubbie, Lenny Henry, that I realised that he was the only Black person there!
Literally...
There were, however, some very clipped accents.
In that this land is merely a client state of the US, Chomsky's comment on the Land of the Unfree deserves an airing: "This country [the US] has a long history of being kind of ridden by fear. It's a very frightened country. This goes back to colonial times."
Managerial Strategy - The Alpha
All managers are able to undertake the day-to-day aspects of their jobs.
Some are market analysts and have trading models to assess player values in the transfer markets - check out Wenger's spend at Arsenal compared to Benitez or Abramovich, for instance.
A few managers are also strategic.
At successful clubs, this is the core talent necessary to gain edge.
Developing a season-long strategy regarding #################################
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So, whereas Rafa has altered his primary strategy repeatedly over the season in all aspects of his authority, Wenger has targeted the Champions League from Day One.
As the Gooners are no longer allowed to win the Premier League and the domestic cup competitions are little more than bobbins, this was not a difficult decision.
The bringing in of Arshavin in the transfer window was a masterstroke as it allowed him to dictate the league programme allowing Arsenal to demolish Villa in the race for 4th spot. Incidentally, we were totally wrong on this one - Arshavin is the Real deal.
Then, last week, Wenger, unstrategically, gave Manchester United a few-tenth's of a goal start in the two legged match up.
By holding Liverpool to a draw last week, Arsenal ended the Premier League title race as a going concern.
Any pressure that Ferguson and his team might have been under for the three matches adjacent to the Arsenal Champions League Semi-Final dissipated.
Just like that...
Vow Of Silence
We'd love to tell you what we Really know about the betting activities of a Certain Little Family during the match between Manchester United and Tottenham at the weekend - you know, the one that went from 0-2 to 5-2 in 22 minutes - but we cannot do this thing.
Meanwhile, it is great to report that the Football League, Interpol, the CIA and a rogue team of extraordinary renditioners are taking an active interest in the investigation into unusual betting patterns during the match between Grays Athletic and Forest Green Rovers at the weekend.
This game also had oodles of money on Team B at Half-Time/Team A at Full-Time and, sure enough, the match progressed, as allegedly arranged, to follow the random walk from 0-0 to 0-1 to 2-1.
William Hill and Blue Square closed their books in disgust.
No books were closed on the Man Utd/Spurs affair, though...
And the reason?
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Better focus on Bury and Accrington and Grays and Forest Green though - 'tis one of Albion's 'justice being seen to be done' charades.
Where is the inquiry into the fixed match between Fulham and Wigan - the one where Andrew Johnson told us that he was wearing his '100 goals' vest because "some lad's in the club told me get it done this week" etc etc etc?
And will there be any inquiry into last night's nonsense at the Nou Camp?
Yeah right!
FK Pobeda get an eight-year ban from European competitions for match-fixing.
One rule for insignificant Macedonian clubs, another for ##################.
One rule for insignificant English clubs, another for ##################.
Head fake...
Help Our Heroes
We feel strongly about heroic majors hobbling along.
We wish to help.
We intend to undertake research and provide the military with a Google Mash-Up which will exhibit, in Real-time, the occurrence and location of all Afghan weddings, thereby helping our heroes in their worthy aims.
Shock and Awe...
A Functioning Mainstream Football Media? #1,429
Paul Wilson is a loathsome rascal.
It would also appear that he spends rather too much time in the pub.
Firstly, Mouth of Scudamore reckoned that Harry Redknapp should be BBC Sports Personality of the Year...
Despite the bungs inquiry, despite the unexplained love-in with referee Mike Dean, despite the rumours about ############################, despite his employment of Kevin Bond on arrival at Tottenham, despite not substituting an injured keeper at Wigan as he was too busy on his mobile etc etc.
Secondly, Mouth of Scudamore reckoned that Roy Hodgson should be named Manager of the Year. Numerous previous posts show how laughable this would be, but would Wilson's view be in any way tainted by the fact that Fulham club agent, John "Count Your Fingers After Shaking Hands" Colquhoun, is closely linked to Wilson's Guardian 'newspaper'?
No, of course not...
A Functioning Mainstream Football Media? #1,430
In the immediate aftermath of the thrilling 4-4 draw between Liverpool and Arsenal, Duncan White of the Telegraph chose to focus on the problems with the Arsenal defence.
Almunia, Clichy and Gallas were injured and sidelined, while Sagna was making his first appearance following an injury.
Liverpool had 18 shots on target of which only 4 went in.
Arsenal had 4 shots - 4 goals.
In Liverpool's previous match, Chelsea had scored 4 times from 6 efforts on target.
So, 10 shots and 8 goals for Snr Reina, and our privileged one focuses on the other team.
A functioning mainstream football media?
First 100 Days Or 1300 More Days Of THAT!!
When Lawrence Summers was busy earning his $8 million from the US banking industry last year (including $135,000 for one after-dinner speech), he oozed something rather unpleasant.
In 1991, Summers stated: "The laws of economics are like the laws of engineering, one set of laws works everywhere."
Is ObamaWorld right to have this man leading the response to the crisis that he helped to cause?
This is one of the sources of our profound boredom in ObamaWorld.
There are many other such sources.
Paul Feldman: "As the audacity of hope turns into the audacity of hype, the American people will surely have no choice but to take action themselves and create a politics that replaces, rather than offsets, the elites that have wrecked the economy".
Meanwhile, over 50% of the members of Congress are lawyers.
Is this wise?
The Ownership Of Portsmouth
Have you noticed how, slug-like, Harry Redknapp leaves a residue of goo behind him wherever he travels?
Southampton - going out of existence.
Portsmouth - financially fucked and with an illegal owner.
Quoting Israeli lawyer Shahar Harary: "We have evidence that the whole Portsmouth deal was done in Arkady Gaydamak's house in Israel."
Harary went on to say that Gaydamak Snr constantly writes his assets under the names of his children or foreign companies for tax reasons and to avoid creditors.
When Our Great Leader Richard Scudamore returns from his campaign-trail support for the Murdochracy/Premier League puppet standing in the Asian Football Confederation power struggle, perhaps he might like to explain how an arms dealer is owning a Premier League club.
Extraordinary Renditioning Former Minister Cashing In
Celtic sub-supremo Dr John Reid is an ethical sort.
Quoting A World To Win: "Take former defence secretary John Reid. Last month it was revealed that weeks after taking Reid on for £50,000 a year to offer 'strategic advice', the security firm G4S was awarded a 4 year contract to supply private security guards to military sites across Britain."
How masonic can you get?
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Two Related Pieces Of Information
1) The Economist refers to Goldman Sachs as a bank "apparently blessed by Midas".
2) Former Goldman Sachs top-dog, Hank Paulson, when instructing the Bank of America (BofA) over the takeover of Merrill Lynch stated, illegally, that "we do not want public disclosure". Mr Paulson then went on to threaten that the entire board and management of BofA would be fired if it tried to renege on the deal.
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A Big Fuss At The Mall
Cool down, control your tempers...
Why all the fuss about the state of the Wembley pitch.
One is a betting industry man and the other is a career politician, their predecessors were equally uninspiring.
The Premier League is a handicap event and the FA Cup an irrelevance.
England internationals are merely high stake poker matches for disparate groups of insider operators.
It is little wonder that the pitch at the Mall was merely added as an afterthought, for that is what our great sport is to the perpetrators of this deconstruction, an afterthought.
Check out how many of the Great and the Good were in their seats at the start of each of the halves of the FA Cup Semi Finals while numerous Real fans had to content themselves with ITV and Setanta.
Keystone Kops
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Reborn New Paradigmists Take Note
The Economist states that the underlying characteristic of this downturn "is mainly a balance-sheet recession precipitated by a financial crisis. And it is a downturn that is unusually synchronised around the globe... each of these characteristics points to a deep recession and a weak recovery... in the aftermath of a financial bust, private investment tends to fall even after the downturn reaches its trough, whereas private consumption grows more slowly than in other recoveries. Recoveries from globally synchronised recessions take 50% longer than other recoveries."
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