Author: Nick

A few observations so far on the Euro 2004 championships:

It’s hot in Portugal in June.

The Italians look unfit.

This looks like a fairly weak England team; questionable ‘keeper, good defence, solid if uninspiring midfield (now increasingly stretched with injuries) and one striker in form.

The netting in the goals is black and on a couple of occasions that I’ve seen it hasn’t been clear if the ball is in the net or not because you can’t see it ripple or bulge – Lampard’s goal against France a case in point if you watch Beckham’s confused reaction. Or maybe he’s just confused in general.

The BBC has some great virtual reality replay stuff on its website (one way of getting round the draconian UEFA TV licensing rights I guess), though it’s annoying that its streaming highlights are aimed at the lowest common denominator, in bandwidth terms.

BBC Radio Five is a wonderful thing.

Mick McCarthy, however, is not.

Nor is Setanta Sports.

England, despite some laudable attempts to stop them by the FA (never thought I’d give them credit for anything much) still has too many dim, myopic and xenophobic ‘supporters’ who will do anything they think will preserve the notion that England rules the waves and that the IRA cares about English football. Thankfully most of them are stuck back in their regional English towns where they can have less impact. Bless.

It should also be pointed out that the same could be said for Germany, Holland Italy and some other countries, but that doesn’t get reported as much, as England is stuck in a kind of media vortex dating back to the 70s.

The reciprocal of that is how somehow satisfying to see the amount of foreign flags on display at each game, such as English flags at Czech-Latvia game or even the Korean flag (not in Europe for those of you unsure) at the Denmark-Italy game. True football fans one & all. Mind you, they also get a Portuguese holiday out of the whole thing too, it must be said.

Things have been a little frantic over the last couple of weeks, so I’m only just getting round to posting these pictures over the first two weeks of her life.

There’s more linked from the one of the two of them below. As usual with the kid(s) pictures, you’ll have to log in to see them so if you need a user name & password then email us, then come back to the home page and click on the link below for these latest pictures.

Scarlett Patience was born today in New York City.

Scarlett and her mother are doing fine.

If you want to know more, please email us…..

For anyone who’s in NYC all the time, some of the time or just once, cycling is the best way to get around. With transportation costs seemingly increasing more rapidly even than property prices, the most efficient form of transport ever crated (energy put in versus energy given out) is the best way to see the city.

And in recent years the city seems to be trying to make the whole thing more pleasurable and less death-defying. Central to that is the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway that – more or less – circumnavigates the island.

In preparation for tackling it, today I cycled from home over 23rd st, up the east river, cutting in at 37th street and back out again at about 63rd st (up 1st Ave the rest of the time) and then up to 96th street on the East River path. From there I went across 96th street, into Central Park, ambled around a bit and back out at West 97th St.

From there to Riverside Park, were a nice “Park Greeter” guided me to the Cherry Walk part of the Waterfront bike path, headed south down the Hudson River, cutting in at the detour point and then black out again.

I saw a fly-past by five military jets of some sort, got snarled up in the end of Fleet Week and the detritus of a somewhat tacky Carnival cruise and then sped down to 24th st, where I cut inland, down to 23rd, right across to Lexington and then home. Phew. Only about 10 miles out of 32, but it’s a start.

I’ve realized how difficult it must to navigate your way to the photos of himself, which let’s face it, is the main reason most of you come here.

You need to log in using a username & password for his albums, though all the others are open.

The problem I have (created myself) is that whereas this blog is Movable Type, the photos are managed in a completely different bit of software called Gallery. There’s no real integration between them, just a bunch of links on the right hand side of the home page.

Ideally I’d have a login script built into the home page, so you could log in into the albums first, and then click on the various links to the pictures for a specific month. There is a way of doing that, but it’s beyond my capabilities at the moment, so for now you’ll have to bear with me.

Probably the best thing to do is to go to the top level of the albums, by clicking here and logging in (if you need a user name & password then email us), then come back to the home page and click on the link within this text, like this one for these latest pictures.

Anyway, here’s one from the latest bunch and it’s also a link to the rest of them – if you’re logged in, of course.

So the football season is over and Fulham have finished in their highest position in their 125-year history – ninth in the Premier League (out of 20). The £6.5m prize money for finishing there is not to be sniffed at, given our debts.

But that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Most previews have been deleted from websites, but this one survives:

To Be Relegated: Fulham, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leicester City.

Managers who could be fired – soon!
….
Chris Coleman at Fulham is an inexperienced manager – and Fulham, with doubts hovering over their stadium, have many problems to be resolved off the pitch. If their league position falls below 12 (which is likely) – then Chris will be at the mercy of the wolves.

At least the Guardian was big enough to point out where it was (quite spectacularly) wrong :

Fulham
Predicted:20 Finished: 9
We said: “After last season’s teasing flirtation with relegation, this season they will put out.” What happened? Ahem. Rather than flirting with relegation, we saw Fulham flirt with the European places. After wiping the egg from our faces, we saw Chris Coleman, “the most inexperienced manager since Attilio Lombardo” dealing admirably with his star striker Louis Saha pouting his way to Manchester United and his team still presenting respectable mid-table opposition.

Room for improvement: A quality out-and-out striker is still required to replace Saha and complement the sustained excellence and creativity of man-of-the-season Luis Boa Morte. Everton’s Tomasz Radzinski would fit the bill.

But given that for the last five games of the 2002-03 season, Coleman oversaw a team that won three, lost one & drew one and we lost no significant players during the off-season (though Sean Davis came within a failed medical of joining Everton, who subsequently escaped relegation this season by one position) it perhaps says more about the media’ bias towards the so-called big clubs and the assumption that they will always win everything, than football reality.

But the fact that our top scorer – Saha – left for Man Utd half way through the season and the next closest to him scored only nine goals indicated the necessity for a decent striker.

Anyway, well done to the lads and Coleman and Steve Kean.

We will never reach the heights of Arsenal, but we’ve got the basis of a good side and even though I know it’s not more important, it feels that our first season back at the new, improved Cottage should be at least as good, if not better.

We’ve been getting him ready for the big change in his life that’s just about to occur.

We’ve also been playing in Washington Square Park playground and playing football on what used to be grass. There’s evidence of all that if you click on the picture below. If you’re logged in to his album, it’ll take you straight there, if not, then you’ll have to log in.

Sorry if this is all a bit complicated – I mean this logging-in thing – but it’s the nature of the software I’m trying to use; one thing for the blog entries and another to manage the photo albums.

To log in before you click on the image you could go here. In the future I’ll make this easier to do, I promise.

We went to see Morrissey at the Apollo Theater in Harlem last night. It was his second night of five concerts there this week.

He was very good, I thought. The set was:

The First Of The Gang To Die / Hairdresser On Fire / I Like You / How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel? / Subway Train [into…] Everyday Is Like Sunday / A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours / All The Lazy Dykes / Don’t Make Fun Of Daddy’s Voice / Jack The Ripper / I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday / Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference / I’m Not Sorry / No One Can Hold A Candle To You / The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores / There Is A Light That Never Goes Out / Irish Blood, English Heart // Hand In Glove

He only did one encore (Hand in Glove) and clearly had a cold – he called it Harlem Mumps – but it sounded like a cold. The day off for Wednesday’s Amateur Night at the Apollo should help that.

His band sounded better than they ever have in the gigs I have seen them (admittedly only the fourth time, the last being in New York in November 1997) but I recall that time them being a bit ropey and Moz stopping one of the songs mid-stream. He’s added a keyboard player and it made a lot of difference in some songs, especially There is a light… and A Rush & A Push. Some of the new stuff is superb, such as The Last of the Gang to Die, but some of the slower new stuff sounded a little weak, especially All The Lazy Dykes (hey, he makes up the titles, so complain to him).

His voice is still very impressive and despite the fact that he’s slightly paunchier than he was 20 years, over that time he is still dressing basically the same, singing some of the same songs, but a lot of newer ones, but about the same themes and doesn’t appear to want to change. For some that might be limiting, but for him, it enables him to retain his iconic status and if you like what he does, then it doesn’t matter that it’s been similar for 20 years. That’s the whole point! Better that than some experimental prog-rock journey, any day of the week.

The Apollo was surprisingly small and a bit of a mess from the outside. The security people were shining torches at anyone who dared stand up, unless of course everybody stood up, then it became redundant. No pictures, as obviously cameras must be banned for fear of…

Mozzer: as good as ever. Band: better than ever. Venue: hmmm

This month’s pictures (as he turns two and a half) show his lordship at home with his best mate Griffin and at a street fair for his playgroup an eating lunch at Mumbles, which is apparently where the Strokes often hang out, as some of them live very close by. So – there you go. Click on the image for more (if you’re logged in, if you don’t know how to then email us)