I've been making spurious & vapid comments on Twitter for over a year now, it's mostly been fun & I've made some great, new chums along the way.
During my Twitterlife I've seen the Iranian revolution nearly work through the power Twitter to be a forum by which Iranian protesters could use to inform the world of the situation from Tehran, I've seen a Daily Mail columnist rightly pilloried by nearly everyone for blaming Steven Gately's death on his supposedly promiscuous gay lifestyle, I've seen the Evil Trafigura made to look very foolish by forgetting that bloggers & social networkers are quite difficult to shut up when you're trying to hide the fact that you're dumping poisonous waste on poor African people & you're a bit embarrassed about it & would rather people didn't know you've been doing it.
I get to read media columnists & see links to stuff that I wouldn't normally see without going through the time or the expense of actually buying anything & I've seen the first general election (the most important & close election in living memory) conducted using Twitter as a way to reach voters & I'm sure this had an effect on the higher than normal turn out, I've seen a strong & belligerent campaign to save 6Music & protect the BBC from being cut down, I've seen numerous campaigns against injustices like spurious libel claimants, Iranian stonings, slack political chicanery & last weeks ridiculous Raoul Moat elongated denuoument.
If you have an opinion or a random thought then someone somewhere will have had the same opinion or random thought and likewise will strongly object to your puffed out opinion. Twitter brings the murky world of democratic debate & general arguing closer together. People can argue or agree with whoever they like on Twitter & no one has to get hurt.
Which leads me on to my main point. During this week Alan Davies, the mopheaded star of QI & Johnathan Creek, had a brief anger outburst because his wife & his newborn child were refused entry to a lounge at Cardiff airport because Davies wife had the child in tow and despite having a perfectly valid ticket that would have allowed her to use the lounge if it wasn't for the fact that she was lugging a squidgy bundle around with her. Davies had a small rant about this being a ridiculous & stupid policy & at least in the telling of his side of the story it does sound a bit silly & regretable.
This was followed by several Twitterers shouting at him for using his celebrity status as a professional thicko & crime fighting stage magician to denounce Cardiff Airport's policy & give it a little tickle with his Twitter fist.
People seemed to get upset about Davies using his mopheaded ways to try to bully poor Cardiff Airport into an apology & explain their anti child policy. People were accusing Davies of slumping to the level of stardom encrusted stropbag and likening his rant to him using the ubiquitous phrase of low level celebrities "don't you know who I am?"
Two things occur with regards this outburst against Davies, the first & slightly nonsensical point is that what's the point of being a minor celeb if you can't use it too elbow your way to better restaurant seats or to get too use the side entrance where a common or garden member of the dirty public can't go. Surely we'd all like to have that "I know his face" type benefits that your average Kate Moss, Richard Hammond or the curious gay dancing fellow from Pineapple Dance Studios get as a matter of course. I know I'd be reaping the benefits as soon as it became apparent I could, it's a trade off for getting paparazzied in your scruffy clothes while buying milk & the papers.
And second, why can't Davies have a rant at things he doesn't like or that annoy him or in this case clearly upset his beloved wife and new child? Is he supposed to keep his mouth shut because the reach of his rant maybe stretches further than most? I don't think so.
I've sent about 7500 Tweets since I started Tweeting & I'd say more than 95% of them are either nonsense or moaning about stuff or things that annoy me. The rest are Catwatch updates. I don't see why Davies isn't allowed the same moany rights as everyone else just because you've seen him on the telly telling knob gags & solving far fetched murders.
Davies does seem to have a divisive following, I also follow Richard Maddeley and he regular makes his opinion known about newsy topics & he doesn't seem to get told to shut up & nor should he either. Maddeley, Davies & all the other celebrities are as welcome to rant on my timeline as anyone else & it doesn't matter if I agree with them or not.
What Davies said wasn't racist or slanderous or demeaning or in an way rabble rousing. It was a moany opinion and he should be allowed to say it. Twitter, for all it's good stuff with bringing issues closer to people and giving it a base to share those opinions with a widespread group of people that they wouldn't normally have access too is surprisingly intolerant at times. People get very upset when you announce certain opinions about things, even when they're said tongue in cheek, and a good arguement isn't something that we should shy away from but sometimes on Twitter it stops being an arguement and descends to personal threats & abuse and this isn't what I signed on for.
If people say things you don't like then argue your point or if you can't be bothered to do that unfollow them. Don't get angry & threaten them. This is the product of the age we live in. An age in which Jeremy Kyle & Trisha have popular mandates to hold an angry mirror up to the flawed individuals in our society who struggle to maintain personal relationships and all in the name of entertainment. It's the modern equivalent of bear baiting and it's led people to think that because they have an opinion on something or that they disagree with someone they can resort to spouting their opinion & that that opinion is the only one that has any merit. It makes people think that it's ok to shout abuse and boo their opinions at the world in a fist clenched, low brow, thuggish manner.
It means when Davies gets on his high horse about an issue, and the Cardiff airport rant isn't the first of it's kind from his anger cannon, he's shouted down by people who think that their own opinion is the only one that matters even though he has what seems to be a perfectly valid and reasonable gripe and all because they object to him being a celebrity with an opinion/point.
These are the same sort of people who write into news broadcasts to give their rabid, angry, shouty, poorly considered opinions, like anyone cares and for the life of me I can't think why News channels air these random, generally stupid points of view as actual news or popular opinion but then a lot of the modern world baffles me.
These people's opinions are just as valid as Davies or Maddeley or yours or mine but they come with such vitriol & spite & an unnerving disinclination to accept a different opinion that they wear out their own arguement with rheotoric, silly vehemance and lung bursting, vein popping stupidity.
It's the sort of stupidity that allows the BNP & the English Defence League & other such organisations to play on the general intolerances of small but vocal sections of our society. The same people who think Raoul Moat's a hero, there's too many imigrants/asylum seekers/ poor African people getting free council houses & that political correctness has gone mad.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Hey Gove Leave Those Kids Alone
Ok so Michael Gove isn't my favourite politician. He looks like the kind of terrible Tory reactionary that became so unpopular in the 80s & 90s that it took Bungling Gordon Brown and his unique brand of incompetant governance to regenerate.
It should be remembered by people that before the Labour party came to power & increased funding in the NHS & education, institutions that we all rely on at some point, were decrepit, shagged out, old dray horses that didn't really do justice to the function which they were designed for.
Labour's legacy is somewhat tainted now by sleeze, lies, an unpopular illegal war, stupid infighting, malevolent spin doctoring, a crippling recession, relaxtion of banking regulation & supervision & a huge budget deficit that will take generations to sort out. But on the plus side the Health service's waiting times are a fraction of the time that they were in the 80s & 90s. the standard of service is generally better & most hospitals are cleaner, newer & generally fitter for purpose.
The same thing seems to have gone on in education. School standards seem to improve year on year & there may be a little too much emphasise on passing exams & not enough on making kids think in an independant & interesting way about things that they are interested in but I guess that's just the way the system judges what's best for students.
The kids seem to be taught in schools with better facilities & too a higher standard than I was when I went through school in the 80s, although it doesn't always look obvious from some of the tatty urchins lopping around Coventry town center but I guess they could have hidden depths beneath their bad tattos, their dirty spitting & their hands in their pants, but I assume that their general education is beter than it was.
Which leads me too my main point, Michael Gove a villain in this parish, has cancelled a policy by the previous government to rebuild every school in the country. This sounds a lot like a bad thing to do. Schools you would think would be a little bit budget cut exempt. It seems unlikely that we're going to stimulate growth & battle out of the recession by spending less on educating young people & turning out stupid teenagers. Now I know buildings arn't necessarily the thing that completes a well rounded education but the environment in which learning is encouraged is a pleasant place & conducive to teaching kids the things that we deem important life skills that has to be right.
Now I'm going to defend Gove a little bit here (Don't worry the big stick will come out later) this whole rebuilding schools thing is a little bit misleading from the previous administration's point of view because it was almost all being done by PFI money which means we were contracting out the cost of the schools rebuilding to banks & institutions set up to make money on PFI who don't give a flying left testicle for how well kids are educated or strange rich folks who want to rebuild schools on the proviso that they can teach them Creationism as part of the cost. I think I'd rather kids were taught in tents and had to share pencils & graph paper & running plimsolls than have them taught Creationism. And at the end of the day all of this money has to be paid back, usually over a long old time to keep the real figure out of the budget/deficit eagle eyes & usually for a lot more than the initial cost of building the school. Plus it's not altogether obvious that Labour wouldn't have had to do this either it's just that they are in the lucky position of having lost the election that it was probably best to lose because it means they get to shout loudly about how these horrid Tories & their little partner are betraying the voters & children by making these cuts in funding.
So that ends Gove's defense because PFI's are a Tory scam that Labour jumped all over while at the same time not really menetioning it when they told us they were doing such wonderful things in the education of our adorable little blighters.
And just because it's a weasly, costly & largely inefficient way of fixing holes in the roofs of schools & giving classrooms a shiny lick of paint dit doesn't naturally follow that you stop doing it some other way.
If Gove had come out and said "This PFI funded rebuilding plan is costing you tax payers a huge amount of money and I'm going to put a stop to this wasteful nonsense but fret ye not voters of England & Wales I'll work on a way of getting these ramshackled, broken seats of learning fixed, I'll be right back with a new plan" then you would have to say ok Mike we'll let you get on with it.
But he didn't do that, he just cancelled the rebuilding scheme & left a lot of schools that desperately need improving or even fixing to make fit for purpose left with nothing.
Instead of this he lied about the cuts in the rebuilding of schools & announced his long spouted scheme to give money to pushy middle class parents like the squinty faced, annoying, loudmouth Toby Young to set up their own schools for their middle class children so they don't have to mix with the kids from the estate. I doubt many parents in Middlesborough or Hull or Bradford or many other horrid sounding places will be allowed to set up their own schools if they don't meet Michael's idea of a suitable person to set up a school so why should anyone be allowed too just because they can pronounce frapacino right.
The synic in me also has a little trouble believing a Tory government when it says it has to make these cuts because of the severely dire state of the nation's finances & we have to make savings everywhere so you're local school has to wait until things are better to get the fixing in needs. When most people know the Tories like nothing better than not spending money on things most people would rather spend money on.
The Tories natural dislike for spending money on things they and their friends don't use anyway is written throughout the history of the 80s & 90s. Nearly two decades went by in which spending on things like schools, the NHS, railway infrastructure, care for the elderly, social services for vulnerable people & getting people jobs was allowed to remain grossly underfunded at the expense of allowing rich spivs the right to become richer spivs & force house prices out of the comfortable reach of most working class people.
So it's with a little bit of an untrustworthy eye that you view these cuts & the little, nagging voice of conscience at the back of your mind has to remind you that the Tories are probably quite happy about this budget crisis because it gives them the excuse to make these spending cuts without having to justify them like they would do if the economy was all rosey coloured. They just get to say it's not our fault, it's the last lot, they fucked you up, we're cleaning up the mess & paying back the massive debt & your local school will have to wait to be made right.
That synic in me thinks that they would probably be doing it anyway at some point, they just have the excuse they need to do it now and they get to dress the excuse up in a pretty frock & tell middle class voters that they can wish away these broken schools and set their own one up, with running water & text books & Apple Macs & learning pods & lessons in how ride a Llama on your Peruvian, ethnic blending, poncho wearing, wicker sandle buying, patronise-a-local holiday out of the smelly, unwashed bother of poor people getting under your Jimmy Choos and making the place look scruffy & unpleasant.
The Tories made a big noise about how budget cuts were going to be done by consensus and there would be a consultation between government on the electorate and my assumption would be that most voters would like their little Apples or Brooklyns or Nigellas to be taught in a lovely school that has working heating & lighting & that smells like it's just been painted & not in a place were the kids have to avoid a bucket on the floor to catch the drips from the hole in the roof. But I'm a bit of a romantic like that. I tend to think that people want the best for their kids & would quite like it if the government at least sounded like it cared as well.
We should all probable ponder this when it comes round to vote next time.
It should be remembered by people that before the Labour party came to power & increased funding in the NHS & education, institutions that we all rely on at some point, were decrepit, shagged out, old dray horses that didn't really do justice to the function which they were designed for.
Labour's legacy is somewhat tainted now by sleeze, lies, an unpopular illegal war, stupid infighting, malevolent spin doctoring, a crippling recession, relaxtion of banking regulation & supervision & a huge budget deficit that will take generations to sort out. But on the plus side the Health service's waiting times are a fraction of the time that they were in the 80s & 90s. the standard of service is generally better & most hospitals are cleaner, newer & generally fitter for purpose.
The same thing seems to have gone on in education. School standards seem to improve year on year & there may be a little too much emphasise on passing exams & not enough on making kids think in an independant & interesting way about things that they are interested in but I guess that's just the way the system judges what's best for students.
The kids seem to be taught in schools with better facilities & too a higher standard than I was when I went through school in the 80s, although it doesn't always look obvious from some of the tatty urchins lopping around Coventry town center but I guess they could have hidden depths beneath their bad tattos, their dirty spitting & their hands in their pants, but I assume that their general education is beter than it was.
Which leads me too my main point, Michael Gove a villain in this parish, has cancelled a policy by the previous government to rebuild every school in the country. This sounds a lot like a bad thing to do. Schools you would think would be a little bit budget cut exempt. It seems unlikely that we're going to stimulate growth & battle out of the recession by spending less on educating young people & turning out stupid teenagers. Now I know buildings arn't necessarily the thing that completes a well rounded education but the environment in which learning is encouraged is a pleasant place & conducive to teaching kids the things that we deem important life skills that has to be right.
Now I'm going to defend Gove a little bit here (Don't worry the big stick will come out later) this whole rebuilding schools thing is a little bit misleading from the previous administration's point of view because it was almost all being done by PFI money which means we were contracting out the cost of the schools rebuilding to banks & institutions set up to make money on PFI who don't give a flying left testicle for how well kids are educated or strange rich folks who want to rebuild schools on the proviso that they can teach them Creationism as part of the cost. I think I'd rather kids were taught in tents and had to share pencils & graph paper & running plimsolls than have them taught Creationism. And at the end of the day all of this money has to be paid back, usually over a long old time to keep the real figure out of the budget/deficit eagle eyes & usually for a lot more than the initial cost of building the school. Plus it's not altogether obvious that Labour wouldn't have had to do this either it's just that they are in the lucky position of having lost the election that it was probably best to lose because it means they get to shout loudly about how these horrid Tories & their little partner are betraying the voters & children by making these cuts in funding.
So that ends Gove's defense because PFI's are a Tory scam that Labour jumped all over while at the same time not really menetioning it when they told us they were doing such wonderful things in the education of our adorable little blighters.
And just because it's a weasly, costly & largely inefficient way of fixing holes in the roofs of schools & giving classrooms a shiny lick of paint dit doesn't naturally follow that you stop doing it some other way.
If Gove had come out and said "This PFI funded rebuilding plan is costing you tax payers a huge amount of money and I'm going to put a stop to this wasteful nonsense but fret ye not voters of England & Wales I'll work on a way of getting these ramshackled, broken seats of learning fixed, I'll be right back with a new plan" then you would have to say ok Mike we'll let you get on with it.
But he didn't do that, he just cancelled the rebuilding scheme & left a lot of schools that desperately need improving or even fixing to make fit for purpose left with nothing.
Instead of this he lied about the cuts in the rebuilding of schools & announced his long spouted scheme to give money to pushy middle class parents like the squinty faced, annoying, loudmouth Toby Young to set up their own schools for their middle class children so they don't have to mix with the kids from the estate. I doubt many parents in Middlesborough or Hull or Bradford or many other horrid sounding places will be allowed to set up their own schools if they don't meet Michael's idea of a suitable person to set up a school so why should anyone be allowed too just because they can pronounce frapacino right.
The synic in me also has a little trouble believing a Tory government when it says it has to make these cuts because of the severely dire state of the nation's finances & we have to make savings everywhere so you're local school has to wait until things are better to get the fixing in needs. When most people know the Tories like nothing better than not spending money on things most people would rather spend money on.
The Tories natural dislike for spending money on things they and their friends don't use anyway is written throughout the history of the 80s & 90s. Nearly two decades went by in which spending on things like schools, the NHS, railway infrastructure, care for the elderly, social services for vulnerable people & getting people jobs was allowed to remain grossly underfunded at the expense of allowing rich spivs the right to become richer spivs & force house prices out of the comfortable reach of most working class people.
So it's with a little bit of an untrustworthy eye that you view these cuts & the little, nagging voice of conscience at the back of your mind has to remind you that the Tories are probably quite happy about this budget crisis because it gives them the excuse to make these spending cuts without having to justify them like they would do if the economy was all rosey coloured. They just get to say it's not our fault, it's the last lot, they fucked you up, we're cleaning up the mess & paying back the massive debt & your local school will have to wait to be made right.
That synic in me thinks that they would probably be doing it anyway at some point, they just have the excuse they need to do it now and they get to dress the excuse up in a pretty frock & tell middle class voters that they can wish away these broken schools and set their own one up, with running water & text books & Apple Macs & learning pods & lessons in how ride a Llama on your Peruvian, ethnic blending, poncho wearing, wicker sandle buying, patronise-a-local holiday out of the smelly, unwashed bother of poor people getting under your Jimmy Choos and making the place look scruffy & unpleasant.
The Tories made a big noise about how budget cuts were going to be done by consensus and there would be a consultation between government on the electorate and my assumption would be that most voters would like their little Apples or Brooklyns or Nigellas to be taught in a lovely school that has working heating & lighting & that smells like it's just been painted & not in a place were the kids have to avoid a bucket on the floor to catch the drips from the hole in the roof. But I'm a bit of a romantic like that. I tend to think that people want the best for their kids & would quite like it if the government at least sounded like it cared as well.
We should all probable ponder this when it comes round to vote next time.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Battlestar Gablogicus Is Back From It's Extensive Tour Of Asia, Europe & Scandinavia!
Battlestar Gablogicus is back, it went away for a little bit too avoid the perpetual sound of Vuvuzelas and mourn the death of English Football. Gablogicus would like to point out that it predicted a win for Spain & a decent attempt by the Netherland's. We also pointed out that Brazil & Argentina were over & that Italy & France were rubbish. We also were all over the fact that Ghana were the best of the African sides and that the South american sides would be a threat.
On the downside we did think England would make the semi finals and didn't at all spot the Germans being the best team in the tournament but you can't get it all right.
In all honesty the Spain prediction was the easy pick, they swept Europe aside two years ago & didn't seem like they'd dropped much in standards since then although the Spanishistas legendary ability to throw a tournament away counted against them there was an element of fate about their win. Like France a few years ago they seemed almost destined to pick up the gaudy statuette.
In other news Gablogicus has been keeping a close eye on this coalition thingy and has become aware that after the initial reaction of "maybe this is a new dawn of bi partisan politics and we can start to make policy by concensus instead of by narrow political dogma" to one of "this smells a bit like a Tory government with some irritating, power hungry clinkers floating about to give it an air of respectability"
I don't mind the idea of a smaller state, I think the government generally interferes in our day to day lives a bit too much and society has a way of ironing out things for itself.
The government should be like a friendly uncle at a picnic. There in body but having a nap while the kiddywinks gambol & frollick with a ball or a kite and if one of the kiddywinks should fall in a river or be chased by an angry goose the uncle should spring into action and save the youngling from death or serious injury.
But it does seem like this government has got it's smaller government lawn mower out a bit too soon to make much sense.
It seems fairly obvious that the country spends too much money and most of it gets wasted and savings have to be made but doing it as quickly as this government has done seems a bit too fast from where I'm sitting.
I'm not going to go into the details now, further blogs on schools, the BBC, Afghanistan & theis so called Big Society stuff will be hobbling into view at some point soon. Plus joy of joys a preview of the new Football season & other satyrical stuff that may or may not be on a serious topic.
On the downside we did think England would make the semi finals and didn't at all spot the Germans being the best team in the tournament but you can't get it all right.
In all honesty the Spain prediction was the easy pick, they swept Europe aside two years ago & didn't seem like they'd dropped much in standards since then although the Spanishistas legendary ability to throw a tournament away counted against them there was an element of fate about their win. Like France a few years ago they seemed almost destined to pick up the gaudy statuette.
In other news Gablogicus has been keeping a close eye on this coalition thingy and has become aware that after the initial reaction of "maybe this is a new dawn of bi partisan politics and we can start to make policy by concensus instead of by narrow political dogma" to one of "this smells a bit like a Tory government with some irritating, power hungry clinkers floating about to give it an air of respectability"
I don't mind the idea of a smaller state, I think the government generally interferes in our day to day lives a bit too much and society has a way of ironing out things for itself.
The government should be like a friendly uncle at a picnic. There in body but having a nap while the kiddywinks gambol & frollick with a ball or a kite and if one of the kiddywinks should fall in a river or be chased by an angry goose the uncle should spring into action and save the youngling from death or serious injury.
But it does seem like this government has got it's smaller government lawn mower out a bit too soon to make much sense.
It seems fairly obvious that the country spends too much money and most of it gets wasted and savings have to be made but doing it as quickly as this government has done seems a bit too fast from where I'm sitting.
I'm not going to go into the details now, further blogs on schools, the BBC, Afghanistan & theis so called Big Society stuff will be hobbling into view at some point soon. Plus joy of joys a preview of the new Football season & other satyrical stuff that may or may not be on a serious topic.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Mondertertianment Recommends #3
Mondaytertainment returns in regular fashion to elbow all those World Cup predictions into last week. Mondaytertainment is my weekly cultural help guide that I hope ends up being the singular most important study of Early 21st century culture and the best bits that you should be injesting like swine in a trough.
So far I've recommended the excellent but under rated cult comedy classic Ruthless People and some books on Football. This week I'm going to hit the cultural corner that is T.V. show boxsets.
T.V. show boxsets are the cultural equivalent of Best Of Albums. But they do seem to have acquired an essential factor in the success or otherwise of a T.V. series. More & more shows are able to continue becasue although they don't get staggering watching fidures people will go out and get the boxset in order to sit and watch their favourite shows without being at the whim of a networks scheduling, shitty adverts and without having to wait a week before their favourite show returns.
The boxset gives the modern T.V. fodder junkie immediate and personal access to watch their favourite shows when they want without having to sit through the shit that they don't want to watch. In fact it means you can ignore the shit telly and just mainline the things that you like most.
NYPD Blue.
The Daddy of the bunch is NYPD Blue, a New York Cop show that started a revolution in telly show production. It made it ok to be gritty and real. It looked like a movie shooting real life and it made it ok to disorientate the watcher with it's shaky, handy cam style.
Without NYPD Blue you don't get CSI because you didn't have the ambition to make shows that had budget enough to look big.
NYPD Blue doesn't spare the watcher a huge amount. It deals straight away with the urban shittyness of New York that you don't get with Sex & The City.
It follows a squad of murder detectives through cases but that's not all. That's just formulaeic telly. What NYPD Blue did was be brave enough to blur the lines between good & bad. It didn't mind giving it's characters flaws or real life problems, in fact it glorofied in it and it gave the cast reign to go through emotional ringers that hadn't really been seen before.
It's why it stood out and for me Dennis Franz who plays Sipowitz created one of the best characters in the history of T.V. drama. A performance of equal strength and vulnerabilty, a flawed man with character and an acute sense of right from wrong. Franz's performance throughtout this series shows how good a character can be allowed to be when the boundaries of performance aren't rigidly defined by a genre rulebook. Sipowitz doesn't especially look like a cop. He's fat, he's balding and he's grumpy as a wasp in pair of clown pants but he's still utterly believable and watchable.
These ensemble cast is also good, the main thing that makes a show truely great as opposed to watchable is how good the various stories play out and how convincing the acting is and for anyone who's ever seen Hotel Babylon you know how wrong a production can get that but NYPD Blue did all the good things right in this exceptional drama series and they did it first.
The West Wing.
Another landmark in T.V. history, The West Wing took what is big enough to be a movie idea and turn it into riveting, tense filled, interesting drama.
The West Wing follows the presidency of Jed Bartlett, played by Martin Sheen, and shows the intricate machine behind the President Of the United States.
Through ten series it takes us over the highs and lows of Bartlett's two terms in office and up to the final series in which his successor is elected. But The West Wing shows the political game for all it's murky glory.
It shows the workings of state and media in relation to one another. It has the bottle to change the pace of the show and at various times The West Wing can be whimsical, exciting, sad, angry, fast paced, slow paced, intricate and elaborate. It shows relationships between the characters better than any show I've ever seen, with the possible exception of Porridge, and these relationaships are what make it such good drama. Anyone could make a show based on The President, they'res been umpteen movies but those movies either depict the President being some sort of hero and saving America from destruction or being a portrait of that president but this show has smaller but equally important cogs working away to make this better.
The show that invented the Walk & Talk, an approach where the acting talent actually do their thing while being on the move and hey synchronise it superbly and they make it look natural and easy which I can only assume it's far from.
Particular stand out performances for me are Bradley Whitford as the scheming Josh Lyman, the totally engaging Allison Janey as C.J. Cregg, the youthful Dule Hill as the fantastically understated Presidential hand holder Charlie Young and the hirsute Richard Schiff as the totally grumpy Toby Ziegler.
As with NYPD Blue the ensemble cast of The West Wing really makes it the show that it is and the show that should be the benchmark of future quality T.V. drama.
A show with ambition, quality and terrifically quirky but pathos filled scripts and storylines means this must be the first series you get when you get that Blue Ray DVD player that you got with your shiney new telly to watch the World Cup on.
The Wire.
Nothing has ever looked like The Wire, no one ever thought you could make a show even like it. The Wire, for at least the first 4 of 5 series, is exceptional telly drama.
Even my mate James who watches very little telly likes it so much that he's got screen savers of his favourite characters.
And what characters. Never before did a show try to show the opposing sides of a cop drama. In NYPD Blue the criminals are mostly a solo episode character, coming in, doing something bad, getting arrested, going away again. But in The Wire the criminals/drug gangs are equally as essential as the Cops to the dramas totally staggering plot.
The Wire also has the bottle to blur the lines between good and bad and it has the bottle to show the warts and all life of the Drugs cartels. Not only featuring the Top Guys but also the street corner boys.
It's this combination that stands The Wire out from anything else ever made before or since. The Wire doesn't stand as preacher against the evil of the drugs trade but grabs the thing by the neck and shows what the life's like for the two sides in this conflict.
The Wire also doesn't spare the watcher the harder sides of streetlife in the hard place. It shows the viciousness of the drug wars, the lengths that the Drugs barons and the Cops will go to in those wars and it still finds time to be chock full of character and wit and charm and excitement and drama.
It's difficult to point out any character that really stands out because their are so many exceptional and individual performances that picking one out is tough, plus everyone I know who's seen it has a different favourite character. It might be Prop Joe or Omar Little, it could be Senator Clay Davis or Bunk or Jay Landsman or even the terribly flawed but magnetic McNulty. But there are so many performances in The Wire that really it's almost embarrasing how good the show and it's characters are.
If The West Wing's going to be the 1st boxset you by ro watch with your new telly this summer The Wire should be in your bag or Amazon basket right next to it. It really is staggeringly good telly.
Other boxsets that I'd recommend inc. Buffy The Vampire Slayer, for sheer pop culture, escapist, cartoon nonsense, although it tails off in quality after series3. The X Files but only until Mulder leaves. Boston Legal which is a better than average legal drama with James Spader and Bill Shatner in sparkingly quirky form and if you like something a little bit underground Kingdom Hospital a slightly weird, slightly difficult to get your head round drama based in a mythical, spooky hospital and is crammed with weird charaters and a storyline that doesn't really allow you too much in the way of a thread. I would assume that Lost is very close to coming out in super duper boxset form soon and although I havn't seen it since the end of series two I'm assured it remained as frustrating and intriguing as always until it's recent denuoument. And likewise Prison Break, which again I've kind of missed since the end of it's terrestrial broadcasting, should be able to fill a few rainy, boring Sundays with a bit of televisual excitement.
So far I've recommended the excellent but under rated cult comedy classic Ruthless People and some books on Football. This week I'm going to hit the cultural corner that is T.V. show boxsets.
T.V. show boxsets are the cultural equivalent of Best Of Albums. But they do seem to have acquired an essential factor in the success or otherwise of a T.V. series. More & more shows are able to continue becasue although they don't get staggering watching fidures people will go out and get the boxset in order to sit and watch their favourite shows without being at the whim of a networks scheduling, shitty adverts and without having to wait a week before their favourite show returns.
The boxset gives the modern T.V. fodder junkie immediate and personal access to watch their favourite shows when they want without having to sit through the shit that they don't want to watch. In fact it means you can ignore the shit telly and just mainline the things that you like most.
NYPD Blue.
The Daddy of the bunch is NYPD Blue, a New York Cop show that started a revolution in telly show production. It made it ok to be gritty and real. It looked like a movie shooting real life and it made it ok to disorientate the watcher with it's shaky, handy cam style.
Without NYPD Blue you don't get CSI because you didn't have the ambition to make shows that had budget enough to look big.
NYPD Blue doesn't spare the watcher a huge amount. It deals straight away with the urban shittyness of New York that you don't get with Sex & The City.
It follows a squad of murder detectives through cases but that's not all. That's just formulaeic telly. What NYPD Blue did was be brave enough to blur the lines between good & bad. It didn't mind giving it's characters flaws or real life problems, in fact it glorofied in it and it gave the cast reign to go through emotional ringers that hadn't really been seen before.
It's why it stood out and for me Dennis Franz who plays Sipowitz created one of the best characters in the history of T.V. drama. A performance of equal strength and vulnerabilty, a flawed man with character and an acute sense of right from wrong. Franz's performance throughtout this series shows how good a character can be allowed to be when the boundaries of performance aren't rigidly defined by a genre rulebook. Sipowitz doesn't especially look like a cop. He's fat, he's balding and he's grumpy as a wasp in pair of clown pants but he's still utterly believable and watchable.
These ensemble cast is also good, the main thing that makes a show truely great as opposed to watchable is how good the various stories play out and how convincing the acting is and for anyone who's ever seen Hotel Babylon you know how wrong a production can get that but NYPD Blue did all the good things right in this exceptional drama series and they did it first.
The West Wing.
Another landmark in T.V. history, The West Wing took what is big enough to be a movie idea and turn it into riveting, tense filled, interesting drama.
The West Wing follows the presidency of Jed Bartlett, played by Martin Sheen, and shows the intricate machine behind the President Of the United States.
Through ten series it takes us over the highs and lows of Bartlett's two terms in office and up to the final series in which his successor is elected. But The West Wing shows the political game for all it's murky glory.
It shows the workings of state and media in relation to one another. It has the bottle to change the pace of the show and at various times The West Wing can be whimsical, exciting, sad, angry, fast paced, slow paced, intricate and elaborate. It shows relationships between the characters better than any show I've ever seen, with the possible exception of Porridge, and these relationaships are what make it such good drama. Anyone could make a show based on The President, they'res been umpteen movies but those movies either depict the President being some sort of hero and saving America from destruction or being a portrait of that president but this show has smaller but equally important cogs working away to make this better.
The show that invented the Walk & Talk, an approach where the acting talent actually do their thing while being on the move and hey synchronise it superbly and they make it look natural and easy which I can only assume it's far from.
Particular stand out performances for me are Bradley Whitford as the scheming Josh Lyman, the totally engaging Allison Janey as C.J. Cregg, the youthful Dule Hill as the fantastically understated Presidential hand holder Charlie Young and the hirsute Richard Schiff as the totally grumpy Toby Ziegler.
As with NYPD Blue the ensemble cast of The West Wing really makes it the show that it is and the show that should be the benchmark of future quality T.V. drama.
A show with ambition, quality and terrifically quirky but pathos filled scripts and storylines means this must be the first series you get when you get that Blue Ray DVD player that you got with your shiney new telly to watch the World Cup on.
The Wire.
Nothing has ever looked like The Wire, no one ever thought you could make a show even like it. The Wire, for at least the first 4 of 5 series, is exceptional telly drama.
Even my mate James who watches very little telly likes it so much that he's got screen savers of his favourite characters.
And what characters. Never before did a show try to show the opposing sides of a cop drama. In NYPD Blue the criminals are mostly a solo episode character, coming in, doing something bad, getting arrested, going away again. But in The Wire the criminals/drug gangs are equally as essential as the Cops to the dramas totally staggering plot.
The Wire also has the bottle to blur the lines between good and bad and it has the bottle to show the warts and all life of the Drugs cartels. Not only featuring the Top Guys but also the street corner boys.
It's this combination that stands The Wire out from anything else ever made before or since. The Wire doesn't stand as preacher against the evil of the drugs trade but grabs the thing by the neck and shows what the life's like for the two sides in this conflict.
The Wire also doesn't spare the watcher the harder sides of streetlife in the hard place. It shows the viciousness of the drug wars, the lengths that the Drugs barons and the Cops will go to in those wars and it still finds time to be chock full of character and wit and charm and excitement and drama.
It's difficult to point out any character that really stands out because their are so many exceptional and individual performances that picking one out is tough, plus everyone I know who's seen it has a different favourite character. It might be Prop Joe or Omar Little, it could be Senator Clay Davis or Bunk or Jay Landsman or even the terribly flawed but magnetic McNulty. But there are so many performances in The Wire that really it's almost embarrasing how good the show and it's characters are.
If The West Wing's going to be the 1st boxset you by ro watch with your new telly this summer The Wire should be in your bag or Amazon basket right next to it. It really is staggeringly good telly.
Other boxsets that I'd recommend inc. Buffy The Vampire Slayer, for sheer pop culture, escapist, cartoon nonsense, although it tails off in quality after series3. The X Files but only until Mulder leaves. Boston Legal which is a better than average legal drama with James Spader and Bill Shatner in sparkingly quirky form and if you like something a little bit underground Kingdom Hospital a slightly weird, slightly difficult to get your head round drama based in a mythical, spooky hospital and is crammed with weird charaters and a storyline that doesn't really allow you too much in the way of a thread. I would assume that Lost is very close to coming out in super duper boxset form soon and although I havn't seen it since the end of series two I'm assured it remained as frustrating and intriguing as always until it's recent denuoument. And likewise Prison Break, which again I've kind of missed since the end of it's terrestrial broadcasting, should be able to fill a few rainy, boring Sundays with a bit of televisual excitement.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
World Cup Group H
World Cup Group H
Spain.
Ahhhhh, finally to the European Champions. Spain are a country who've always had exceptionally gifted players who never quite gelled together to produce a team quite good enough to win anything, until two years ago.
Spain waltzed through all comers in the European Championships and made most sides look very poor while doing it. They have arguably the most talented group of ball moving midfielders and in David Villa and Fernando Torres probably the most dangerous pait of strikers playing together in the tournament.
The emergence of Barcelona over the last two seasons as Europe's best Footballing side helps with this but everywhere on the pitch they seem to have experienced World class players who now know how to win tournaments in a very Brazillian way.
they have two genuinely World standard Goalkeepers either of which would get into almost every other side in the tournament, two central defenders who play together for Barcelona and look rock solid despite a slight lack of pace and Midfielders able to move the ball around the pitch under close scrutiny and have teams chasing shadows.
But as Inter Milan proved in beating Barcelona if you don't mind playing negative to win you can stop even great Footballing styles and in Switzerland they have a team with the mentality to do just that. But I doubt they have enough quality to keep Spain out for 90 minutes and Honduras may just find themselves outclassed against this very good team. The game against Chile could be the game of the group stages. It looks to me like a match up of two good Footballing sides who play the ball in the right way. I think a clash of good European & south American styles may well produce some of the best Football we'll see. It's probably good this game is the last game for each side and they can hopefully both be qualified and play the game properly.
Going through rating. Yes, at a canter and looking like a real threat in doing it.
What next. Anything's possible although it'll be interesting to see if the best Eorpean side can beat the best South American side if they play Brazil. The winner of that game will be massive favourites to win the whole thing.
Switzerland.
Switzerland have become a side who win games narrowly. For more than 4 years they've based their entire system on playing with ten men behind the ball, pressing the opposition and showing a lack of adventure to get to far up the pitch to often.
it Germany four years ago they did this well enough to go to the quarter finals and even though their brand of negativity means that they're horrid to watch and so I didn't see the game I'll guess that whoever did beat them didn't find it easy or have much fun.
Switzerland don't seem to have to many stars but when the team ethic and work rate is high you can get results and it seems to work for Switzerland. This group looks a bit top heavy too me and I can't see how they get much out of Spain even with their defensive style. They should be Honduras but I'd have thought that's a game where they'd have to open up a little and play in the top half of the pitch and for a team that's comfortable defending their own goal have they got the players to play high up the pitch and take the game to an opposition, even one as relatively under rated as Honduras. The game against Chile looks like the crucial match up because they should have got a bit of a run around from Spain and they'll need to regroup their Footballing ego a little bit because I'd have thought Chile would have enough to cause them real problems.
Going through ratings. It's between them and Chile and I'd give Chile the edge but it's a possibility. What next. Probably getting smashed to the four corners of Africa by Brazil in a game that should confirm pure Football skill beats pure Football system once and for all.
Honduras.
Honduras only qualified out of Central America courtesy of a 93rd minute US goal against Costa Rica to squeak in on goal difference and will probably think making their 1st World Cup in a generation is winning enough for them.
I would think that we'll probably find one or two good unknown Footballers who could be considered good enough to do a job in the lower reaches of the Premiership and the Championship but you'd have thought hey they might be missing a touch of real quality on the biggest stage. Although I'm looking forward to watching the amusingly named George Welcome have a kick about and as a guy that likes to support an underdog (I have a soft spot fot the mighty Leyton Orient) I'll be rooting for Honduras as my alternate team to England but the non sentimental side of me says Spain should romp over them, Chile will probably be a level to much and Switzerland are a well organised team who are difficult to score against so I'd have thought they might struggle to get close to a result.
Going through rating. Slender, but not as slender as New Zealand or North Korea. What next. Home before July.
Chile.
I think Chile might be my pick as dark horses in this tournament. They havn't been to a World Cup for a while but you can't right off any side that makes it out of the tough South American group.
I'd worry a little bit about how well they travel but if they can handle being far from home I'd have thought they can get some success in this group.
I doubt they're going to be good enough to beat Spain but I'd think they would have enough quality to cause Switzerland problems and they should be good enough to beat Honduras.
They start against Honduras and if they can set a decent benchmark by popping in three or four goals then that should see them in confident mood to take on the Swiss next up.
They don't have any household names and the Swiss won't be easily beaten but I think Chile might just have enough to make it through.
Going through rating. A chance. It depends if they can break down the Swiss. What next. Surprising Brazil. Erm not so much.
Spain.
Ahhhhh, finally to the European Champions. Spain are a country who've always had exceptionally gifted players who never quite gelled together to produce a team quite good enough to win anything, until two years ago.
Spain waltzed through all comers in the European Championships and made most sides look very poor while doing it. They have arguably the most talented group of ball moving midfielders and in David Villa and Fernando Torres probably the most dangerous pait of strikers playing together in the tournament.
The emergence of Barcelona over the last two seasons as Europe's best Footballing side helps with this but everywhere on the pitch they seem to have experienced World class players who now know how to win tournaments in a very Brazillian way.
they have two genuinely World standard Goalkeepers either of which would get into almost every other side in the tournament, two central defenders who play together for Barcelona and look rock solid despite a slight lack of pace and Midfielders able to move the ball around the pitch under close scrutiny and have teams chasing shadows.
But as Inter Milan proved in beating Barcelona if you don't mind playing negative to win you can stop even great Footballing styles and in Switzerland they have a team with the mentality to do just that. But I doubt they have enough quality to keep Spain out for 90 minutes and Honduras may just find themselves outclassed against this very good team. The game against Chile could be the game of the group stages. It looks to me like a match up of two good Footballing sides who play the ball in the right way. I think a clash of good European & south American styles may well produce some of the best Football we'll see. It's probably good this game is the last game for each side and they can hopefully both be qualified and play the game properly.
Going through rating. Yes, at a canter and looking like a real threat in doing it.
What next. Anything's possible although it'll be interesting to see if the best Eorpean side can beat the best South American side if they play Brazil. The winner of that game will be massive favourites to win the whole thing.
Switzerland.
Switzerland have become a side who win games narrowly. For more than 4 years they've based their entire system on playing with ten men behind the ball, pressing the opposition and showing a lack of adventure to get to far up the pitch to often.
it Germany four years ago they did this well enough to go to the quarter finals and even though their brand of negativity means that they're horrid to watch and so I didn't see the game I'll guess that whoever did beat them didn't find it easy or have much fun.
Switzerland don't seem to have to many stars but when the team ethic and work rate is high you can get results and it seems to work for Switzerland. This group looks a bit top heavy too me and I can't see how they get much out of Spain even with their defensive style. They should be Honduras but I'd have thought that's a game where they'd have to open up a little and play in the top half of the pitch and for a team that's comfortable defending their own goal have they got the players to play high up the pitch and take the game to an opposition, even one as relatively under rated as Honduras. The game against Chile looks like the crucial match up because they should have got a bit of a run around from Spain and they'll need to regroup their Footballing ego a little bit because I'd have thought Chile would have enough to cause them real problems.
Going through ratings. It's between them and Chile and I'd give Chile the edge but it's a possibility. What next. Probably getting smashed to the four corners of Africa by Brazil in a game that should confirm pure Football skill beats pure Football system once and for all.
Honduras.
Honduras only qualified out of Central America courtesy of a 93rd minute US goal against Costa Rica to squeak in on goal difference and will probably think making their 1st World Cup in a generation is winning enough for them.
I would think that we'll probably find one or two good unknown Footballers who could be considered good enough to do a job in the lower reaches of the Premiership and the Championship but you'd have thought hey they might be missing a touch of real quality on the biggest stage. Although I'm looking forward to watching the amusingly named George Welcome have a kick about and as a guy that likes to support an underdog (I have a soft spot fot the mighty Leyton Orient) I'll be rooting for Honduras as my alternate team to England but the non sentimental side of me says Spain should romp over them, Chile will probably be a level to much and Switzerland are a well organised team who are difficult to score against so I'd have thought they might struggle to get close to a result.
Going through rating. Slender, but not as slender as New Zealand or North Korea. What next. Home before July.
Chile.
I think Chile might be my pick as dark horses in this tournament. They havn't been to a World Cup for a while but you can't right off any side that makes it out of the tough South American group.
I'd worry a little bit about how well they travel but if they can handle being far from home I'd have thought they can get some success in this group.
I doubt they're going to be good enough to beat Spain but I'd think they would have enough quality to cause Switzerland problems and they should be good enough to beat Honduras.
They start against Honduras and if they can set a decent benchmark by popping in three or four goals then that should see them in confident mood to take on the Swiss next up.
They don't have any household names and the Swiss won't be easily beaten but I think Chile might just have enough to make it through.
Going through rating. A chance. It depends if they can break down the Swiss. What next. Surprising Brazil. Erm not so much.
World Cup Group G
World Cup Group G
Brazil.
It's relatively straight forward too make a case for Brazil winning the whole thing. They'e won it five times, they're the only country to have won it outside their own continent, they're the number one ranked team in the World, they have a team of players most of which would cruise into any other side in the World, they qualified, as they always do, with staggering ease, they find beating Argentina (and everyone else for that matter) so ridiculously easy that they make Argentina look plain amateurish while they're doing it and they've added being able to defend to their dazzling offensive play.
So are they going far in this tournament? Yes. This Group looks like being "The Group Of Death" as hysterical journalists usually call the hardest looking Group. But that won't bother Brazil too much because they're the ones who make it "The Group Of Death" for the other teams.
I don't think anyone's really sure how good or bad North Korea are going to be but I've got a genuine feeling that Brazil might make them wish they'd never left PyongYang and that's after only one game.
Going through rating. Yes, a certainty. What next. It's a tough half of the draw but as far as it's possible to go.
North Korea.
I genuinely don't know. North Korea may turn out to have 11 players of World shifting ability who change the way Football's played forever and create a Communist Dynasty that reigns over Football for decades while the rest of the Football World staggers about trying to make sense of how they managed it and trying to work out how to do it.
Or, as is far more likely, they qualified from Asia which doesn't sound too hard and beating Cambodia and Kygikistan isn't the same as beating Brazil or Portugal.
Now we all know that North Korea caused probably the biggest upset in World Cup history by beating Italy in 1966 but that, as England fans will tell you, was a long time ago and I can't see a shock occuring here.
They've been a bit unlucky to get drawn in the toughest of the 8 groups and having to play 3 sides with genuine credentials but like New Zealand I think this tournament's going to be a massive struggle just to keep it from being embarrasing.
Going through rating. Three straight defeats and probably a gulag when they get home. What next. Probably prison for crimes against the State.
Ivory Coast.
Ivory Coast may be the best African side in the tournament and they also might have one of the most dangerous strikers in World Football in Didier Drogba but because they've drawn too genuinely good teams none of that makes a difference.
They certainly have a chance of making it through and it's probably not a bad thing with that in mind to be playing Portugal 1st up. It would seem crucial to any ambitions of making the later stages of the tournament that they beat Portugal.
Also with that being the case it would seem equally crucial that Didier Drogba recovers from his broken arm to play and when he does play he plays like the World beater who scares Premiership defence to Death and not the stroppy, diving child he can be when his mind's not right.
Drafting in Sven Goren Erikson may or may not help. His reputation since leaving the England job has been somewhat tarnished but presumably he still knows his way around The Puffin Guide To Football Coaching and it could be the crucial factor that gives them an edge. If that edge wasn't needed against Portugal. A team that proved to be a major thorn in his sides in tournaments with England to the point where you could make the assumption that he must have kicked the Portuguese equivalent of a Leprechaun the amount of luck that flowed towards the swarthy Portuguese pirates.
Going through rating. The first games crucial. If they get a result then yes. They'll lose to Brazil and should make mincemeat of North Korea so at worst not losing to Portugal is essential for their chances. What Next. If they go through they look like they might play Spain and that's going home time. If they surprise me and win the group then maybe further.
Brazil.
It's relatively straight forward too make a case for Brazil winning the whole thing. They'e won it five times, they're the only country to have won it outside their own continent, they're the number one ranked team in the World, they have a team of players most of which would cruise into any other side in the World, they qualified, as they always do, with staggering ease, they find beating Argentina (and everyone else for that matter) so ridiculously easy that they make Argentina look plain amateurish while they're doing it and they've added being able to defend to their dazzling offensive play.
So are they going far in this tournament? Yes. This Group looks like being "The Group Of Death" as hysterical journalists usually call the hardest looking Group. But that won't bother Brazil too much because they're the ones who make it "The Group Of Death" for the other teams.
I don't think anyone's really sure how good or bad North Korea are going to be but I've got a genuine feeling that Brazil might make them wish they'd never left PyongYang and that's after only one game.
Going through rating. Yes, a certainty. What next. It's a tough half of the draw but as far as it's possible to go.
North Korea.
I genuinely don't know. North Korea may turn out to have 11 players of World shifting ability who change the way Football's played forever and create a Communist Dynasty that reigns over Football for decades while the rest of the Football World staggers about trying to make sense of how they managed it and trying to work out how to do it.
Or, as is far more likely, they qualified from Asia which doesn't sound too hard and beating Cambodia and Kygikistan isn't the same as beating Brazil or Portugal.
Now we all know that North Korea caused probably the biggest upset in World Cup history by beating Italy in 1966 but that, as England fans will tell you, was a long time ago and I can't see a shock occuring here.
They've been a bit unlucky to get drawn in the toughest of the 8 groups and having to play 3 sides with genuine credentials but like New Zealand I think this tournament's going to be a massive struggle just to keep it from being embarrasing.
Going through rating. Three straight defeats and probably a gulag when they get home. What next. Probably prison for crimes against the State.
Ivory Coast.
Ivory Coast may be the best African side in the tournament and they also might have one of the most dangerous strikers in World Football in Didier Drogba but because they've drawn too genuinely good teams none of that makes a difference.
They certainly have a chance of making it through and it's probably not a bad thing with that in mind to be playing Portugal 1st up. It would seem crucial to any ambitions of making the later stages of the tournament that they beat Portugal.
Also with that being the case it would seem equally crucial that Didier Drogba recovers from his broken arm to play and when he does play he plays like the World beater who scares Premiership defence to Death and not the stroppy, diving child he can be when his mind's not right.
Drafting in Sven Goren Erikson may or may not help. His reputation since leaving the England job has been somewhat tarnished but presumably he still knows his way around The Puffin Guide To Football Coaching and it could be the crucial factor that gives them an edge. If that edge wasn't needed against Portugal. A team that proved to be a major thorn in his sides in tournaments with England to the point where you could make the assumption that he must have kicked the Portuguese equivalent of a Leprechaun the amount of luck that flowed towards the swarthy Portuguese pirates.
Going through rating. The first games crucial. If they get a result then yes. They'll lose to Brazil and should make mincemeat of North Korea so at worst not losing to Portugal is essential for their chances. What Next. If they go through they look like they might play Spain and that's going home time. If they surprise me and win the group then maybe further.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
World Cup Group F
World Cup Group F
Italy.
Italy might prove to be the most tricky side to appraise. They are the World Champions and they are the 2nd most successful team in World Cup history. These are factors that point to them being a decent bet (this is not a betting guide) to pedigree their way to deep into the tournament. That coupled with the fact that this appears to be the poorest group of the tournament and Italy's ability to be tactically brilliant means that they should be taken seriously as contenders for the title.
I don't think many pundits would have picked them to win the World Cup 4 years ago and I don't hear many saying anything different this time either but last time they ambled through the draw and the longer they were in the tournament the more they looked like contenders.
That being that they didn't smash up much in their qualifying campaign and indeed only experience and a bit of luck saw them scrape past the unlucky Irish to make it without a tricky play off & their form in friendlies hasn't been that hot either. But Italy don't need to look good to win games of Football. If you win all your games 1-0 you'll win the World Cup and Italy have done that four times so they don't seem to mind not scoring 5 or 6 and thrilling anyone or even looking convincing. But if you have a mentality that says we don't mind only having two shots on goal and only 35% of possession if we win 1-0. Inter Milan proved that you can beat very good teams by being formation strong and playing to a rigid, stiffling plan. It may not be pretty or exciting to watch but it works and the Itallians won't care because tehy'll just say England or Spain might play in the best, most momentous games in tournaments but they've got one World Cup win between them.
The reason why I'm slightly waffling is that this group's so ridiculously easy that Italy might as well start in the 2nd round. but the waffling has a bit of a long drawn out point. That point is as champions, and champions with serious historic credentials, they'll be looking to shrug off this pip squeak of a group and make hay late into the tournament. But I think they'res a problem with that idea and that problem is that Italy don't look like they've got many good players. The Inter Milan team that I just mentioned who won the European Cup last month had no Italians in it. Di Natale scored a fair amount of goals last season and looks like being their key player but they don't seem to have that extra bit of quality that they've had in Baggio, Del Piero and the like to give them an edge over star studded teams like Spain, Brazil & Argentina.
Going through rating. even though they're not that good anymore it's as sure as eggs is eggs. What next. No one's going to want to have to try and beat them because A) it'll be a battle to actually beat them and B) if they do look like getting beaten Italian sides get a touch stroppy and start kicking the shit out of teams. Probable quarter finalists and then it's all about shutting teams down. If they can do that as well as previous Italian sides they could go further but I think this is the real tough half of the draw and Spain, Brazil & the Nertherlands are all good enough to send Italy packing.
Paraguay.
Cruised through a tough South American qualifying campaign to book their slots relatively comfortably but this is the big stage and do they have enough quality at the sharp end. Roque santa Cruz, who'se nominally quoted as being their most important player, has had a poor, injury hit season for Manchester City and that might lose them a bit of an edge.
I vaguely remember england beating Paraguay in 1986 but that's as much as I can remember about their recent World Cup history and I doubt they'llstrike fear into the better teams of in the World.
Like I've said this group looks the poorest of the 8 groups and it seems a straight fight between them and Slovakia about which one makes it into round 2. I don't see much between the two and with that in mind it's conceivable that they could make it out of this group but I would have thought all they'll do if they do is be fodder for the Netherland's to boost their ego before hitting the real good teams in this half of the draw.
Going through rating. The game against Slovakia appears to be key to this. If they win it they'll probably go through if not then a long flight home. What next. out in round 2 even if they make it.
New Zealand.
Possibly the worst side at the World Cup and a side with literally no chance. If last summers Confederations Cup's anything to go by then they'll be lucky to score let alone win.
New Zealand make this tournament courtesy of the ultra tricky proving ground of Oceania where the mighty Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti & New Caledonia stand between you and World Cup glory and then winning 1-0 over two legs against Bahrain, the Irish must wish Ireland was on the other side of the World, so they come via a pathetic level of competition and Ryan Nelson aside have no players who play in Top Leagues in Europe so they'll show up and be beaten and look bad and it'll be embarrasing and we can all forget it ever happen. A bit like Zaire in 1970 when they lost 11-0 to Yugoslavia and had a player booked for kicking the ball a million miles while it was sat waiting to be free kicked.
Going through rating. Apart from North Korea, who are in a harder group, they have the least chance of any team in the tournament. What next. I'm sure they will be some Egg Chasing on at home this summer.
Slovakia.
They seem to have benefited more than the Czech Republic by the fall of Communism and the subsequant splitting in two of the old Czechoslavakia. The Czech's seem to have stagnated as an evolving Football nation while their neighbours and fiercest rivals Slovakia seem to have progressed naturally over the 20 or so years that they've been in existence.
The Czechs were always a good side and difficult to beat and Slovakia seemed to have picked up that good habit if their qualifying was anything to go by.
The group they qualified from was very much full of average teams with similar quality levels and it was a decent effort to do enough to break out of the pack, to Northern Ireland and their Czech neighbour's expense.
Going through rating. I expect them to give Italy a decent game but end up the losers and I expect them to coast past New Zealand so it all boils down to how they do against Paraguay. if they win they go through if they lose their going home. What next. Assuming they beat Paraguay and make the 2nd round they'll struggle to match the Netherlands and be exposed as being not quite good enough to cope at the Top end against the very best teams.
Italy.
Italy might prove to be the most tricky side to appraise. They are the World Champions and they are the 2nd most successful team in World Cup history. These are factors that point to them being a decent bet (this is not a betting guide) to pedigree their way to deep into the tournament. That coupled with the fact that this appears to be the poorest group of the tournament and Italy's ability to be tactically brilliant means that they should be taken seriously as contenders for the title.
I don't think many pundits would have picked them to win the World Cup 4 years ago and I don't hear many saying anything different this time either but last time they ambled through the draw and the longer they were in the tournament the more they looked like contenders.
That being that they didn't smash up much in their qualifying campaign and indeed only experience and a bit of luck saw them scrape past the unlucky Irish to make it without a tricky play off & their form in friendlies hasn't been that hot either. But Italy don't need to look good to win games of Football. If you win all your games 1-0 you'll win the World Cup and Italy have done that four times so they don't seem to mind not scoring 5 or 6 and thrilling anyone or even looking convincing. But if you have a mentality that says we don't mind only having two shots on goal and only 35% of possession if we win 1-0. Inter Milan proved that you can beat very good teams by being formation strong and playing to a rigid, stiffling plan. It may not be pretty or exciting to watch but it works and the Itallians won't care because tehy'll just say England or Spain might play in the best, most momentous games in tournaments but they've got one World Cup win between them.
The reason why I'm slightly waffling is that this group's so ridiculously easy that Italy might as well start in the 2nd round. but the waffling has a bit of a long drawn out point. That point is as champions, and champions with serious historic credentials, they'll be looking to shrug off this pip squeak of a group and make hay late into the tournament. But I think they'res a problem with that idea and that problem is that Italy don't look like they've got many good players. The Inter Milan team that I just mentioned who won the European Cup last month had no Italians in it. Di Natale scored a fair amount of goals last season and looks like being their key player but they don't seem to have that extra bit of quality that they've had in Baggio, Del Piero and the like to give them an edge over star studded teams like Spain, Brazil & Argentina.
Going through rating. even though they're not that good anymore it's as sure as eggs is eggs. What next. No one's going to want to have to try and beat them because A) it'll be a battle to actually beat them and B) if they do look like getting beaten Italian sides get a touch stroppy and start kicking the shit out of teams. Probable quarter finalists and then it's all about shutting teams down. If they can do that as well as previous Italian sides they could go further but I think this is the real tough half of the draw and Spain, Brazil & the Nertherlands are all good enough to send Italy packing.
Paraguay.
Cruised through a tough South American qualifying campaign to book their slots relatively comfortably but this is the big stage and do they have enough quality at the sharp end. Roque santa Cruz, who'se nominally quoted as being their most important player, has had a poor, injury hit season for Manchester City and that might lose them a bit of an edge.
I vaguely remember england beating Paraguay in 1986 but that's as much as I can remember about their recent World Cup history and I doubt they'llstrike fear into the better teams of in the World.
Like I've said this group looks the poorest of the 8 groups and it seems a straight fight between them and Slovakia about which one makes it into round 2. I don't see much between the two and with that in mind it's conceivable that they could make it out of this group but I would have thought all they'll do if they do is be fodder for the Netherland's to boost their ego before hitting the real good teams in this half of the draw.
Going through rating. The game against Slovakia appears to be key to this. If they win it they'll probably go through if not then a long flight home. What next. out in round 2 even if they make it.
New Zealand.
Possibly the worst side at the World Cup and a side with literally no chance. If last summers Confederations Cup's anything to go by then they'll be lucky to score let alone win.
New Zealand make this tournament courtesy of the ultra tricky proving ground of Oceania where the mighty Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti & New Caledonia stand between you and World Cup glory and then winning 1-0 over two legs against Bahrain, the Irish must wish Ireland was on the other side of the World, so they come via a pathetic level of competition and Ryan Nelson aside have no players who play in Top Leagues in Europe so they'll show up and be beaten and look bad and it'll be embarrasing and we can all forget it ever happen. A bit like Zaire in 1970 when they lost 11-0 to Yugoslavia and had a player booked for kicking the ball a million miles while it was sat waiting to be free kicked.
Going through rating. Apart from North Korea, who are in a harder group, they have the least chance of any team in the tournament. What next. I'm sure they will be some Egg Chasing on at home this summer.
Slovakia.
They seem to have benefited more than the Czech Republic by the fall of Communism and the subsequant splitting in two of the old Czechoslavakia. The Czech's seem to have stagnated as an evolving Football nation while their neighbours and fiercest rivals Slovakia seem to have progressed naturally over the 20 or so years that they've been in existence.
The Czechs were always a good side and difficult to beat and Slovakia seemed to have picked up that good habit if their qualifying was anything to go by.
The group they qualified from was very much full of average teams with similar quality levels and it was a decent effort to do enough to break out of the pack, to Northern Ireland and their Czech neighbour's expense.
Going through rating. I expect them to give Italy a decent game but end up the losers and I expect them to coast past New Zealand so it all boils down to how they do against Paraguay. if they win they go through if they lose their going home. What next. Assuming they beat Paraguay and make the 2nd round they'll struggle to match the Netherlands and be exposed as being not quite good enough to cope at the Top end against the very best teams.
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