Spoon and the City

Podcast 22/02/2012

2012-02-22T18:13:00.005Z

It's all here.

Spoon & the City Podcast 15/02/2012

2012-02-15T18:31:00.002Z

This weeks topics include Grammys, Muppets, JDIFF and football. Enjoy

Super Bowl

2012-02-08T21:15:00.002Z

If anyone was looking for a Spoon & the City preview/review of the Super Bowl. I'm afraid I've been too busy with college to write them. Hopefully I have the time to write for the full 2012 season. For now though:

Podcast 08/02/2012

2012-02-08T21:04:00.002Z

In the inaugural Spoon & the City Podcast, Spoon and Eoin talk about Superbowl, The Muppets and travelling around town.

NFL Conference Championships

2012-01-23T15:29:00.001Z

On Friday I promised you the regular ‘Why my PredictionsWere Wrong’ section but, unbelievably, I call both games correctly. Here’s howit happened:

Baltimore Ravens 20 - 23 New England Patriots

Wellity, wellity, wellity! In a finale even more tense thanin San Fran last week, the Baltimore Ravens won it, tied it (which would haveled to overtime) and eventually lost it in the last two plays of the game.

Right from the start, the Ravens put it up to the Patriotsmore than anyone would have expected. Indeed, not since Edgar Allan Poe hassomeone had such a problem Ravens. A Ravens’ passing game heretofore unseen hadthe Patriots worried and, vitally, kept Brady & Co off the field. JoeFlacco was making passes while Brady's game looked loose. In fact, in a strangetwist of logic, Brady didn’t even throw a touchdown pass.

After a drab first quarter, which saw just three points forthe Patriots and none for the Ravens, t0he Ravens turned the screw. The hitswere coming in hard and Brady struggled to get the ball to Gronkowski orHernandez. Flacco was finding Boldin and Smith that bit easier and, on a numberof occasions, it looked like long receiving touchdowns were on the cards.

At the end of the third quarter, in a score that flattered thePatriots, the Baltimore led by four. The first possession of the fourth quartersaw New England taking over four minutes to drive the ball sixty yards. Onfourth down with inches left before the goal line, Tom Brady took the ball and leaptover the defensive line for a touchdown. It was a narrow lead and there was still11 minutes on the clock. The teams then traded interceptions and punts whichleft the Ravens in possession on their own twenty with less than two minutesleft.

A quick march down the field saw the Ravens on the Patriots yardline on second down. That is when the drama got turned up to 11. Joe Flaccowound up his arm and fired the ball to receiver Lee Evans in the endzone. Theball hit his hands and he looked to have secured possession before the ball wasknocked out of his hands by defender Sterling Moore. Had Frodo made it all theway to Mt Doom to put an end to Tom Brady’s Sauron? A collective intake ofbreath as all eyes turned towards the referee. ‘Incomplete pass’ was the call.No touchdown!

Billy "The C***" Cundiff as he's now known to Ravens fans

The game was not over and, after a no-gain third down, BillyCundiff stepped up for straight forward 32-yard field goal to send the ballinto overtime. The snap was fineand the ball set perfectly. But in a moment reminiscent of Ray Finkle in the1985 Super Bowl (“Laces out, Dan!”), Cundiff turned the ball to the left andwide of the posts.

Patriots win! Tom Brady, a man who already has more ringsthan Middle Earth, and co go to the big game in Indianapolis in two weeks.

Cundiff: he became the most hated man in America… for a fewhours at least.

New York Giants 20 – 17San Francisco 49ers (in overtime)

This game was never going to match the previous one fortension but it make a great attempt at it. It was a game full of massive hit aseach teams’ attacking lines took a beating of the rivals’ defence. For everysack (tackle on a quarterback, bluffers) on San Fran QB Alex Smith, there wasone on NY’s Eli Manning.

The first half was nip and tuck. The Giants were making morefirst downs, thanks to an incredible third down conversion rate from Manning,and took a three point lead into half-time. The third quarter saw San Francisco get ontop, though. Smith threw a touchdown pass to Davis to out the 49ers up as theirdefence shut down the Giants’ attack.

New York were struggling to make yards and it seemed that,entering the fourth quarter, San Francisco would see the game out. That all changed with a Giants punt afteragain failing to make the 10 yards. The ball flew into the 49ers’ half in thedirection of Kyle Williams. As the ball bounced he thought better of trying toreturn it and left it to go dead. He didn’t leave it well enough, however, andthe ball grazed him knee. The Giants seized it and had the ball in the 49ers halffor the only time in the second half.

No mistake was made from there and Manning threw a touchdownpass to Manningham (in what was his first catch of the day). San Franciscodrove back down the field and scored the field goal to tie up the game withfive minutes of play left. Neither team were able to form an effective attack,and the remaining minutes were played out with no one bothering the scoreboardfurther.

Overtime seemed to be heading the same way. Neither team wasmaking yards. The game had descended into a battle of the punters and punts don’twin games. Turnovers do though. As another punt was sent in the direction ofKyle Williams, he knew what to do this time. The catch was safe and he set offup the field hoping to set up good attacking position for his 49ers. As atackle came in on him though, something happened to make the world forget aboutBilly Cundiff for a while. The ball slipped out from his grasp and the Giantsleapt on it.

Kyle Williams turning over the ball for the second time

The Giants had it on the 49ers’ 24-yard line: well withinfield goal range. They slowly advanced the ball, keeping it safe before theball made it to the 13-yard line. It was Lawrence Tynes time as the Giantslined up the potentially winning field goal. The snap was loose but it wasrecovered and set for the Tynes to knock it over.

The game was over and the Giants had done it. They areheading to Indianapolis to meet the Patriots, just like they did four years. Injust under two weeks time, we will have ‘The Rematch’.

As for Williams: what a Cun…diff

The so-called winning play of the 2008 Super Bowl. 2012 will be 'The Rematch'

NFL Conference Championship - Preview

2012-01-20T16:57:00.002Z

The business end of the American Football season starts thisweekend with the de facto semi-finals, the Conference Championships. It isperhaps the worst time to exist the championship too. All participants in thisweek’s games will feel that this could ‘be their year’. The big S-word is soclose now that they can’t help but think about it.

But half of the teams won’t make it. For them, all the hopeand expectation that they have allowed to build will be deflated over thecourse of 60 minutes on Sunday. The winners will enter the history books andthe losers go home.

(One point to note on today’s piece is the challenge I setmyself on Monday. There are a number of things I said I’d put in and that made writingthis a bit of a struggle at points.)

Baltimore Ravens @New England Patriots

A team well used to going home around this stage in recentyears is the New England Patriots. They let their hopes build each year beforechoking like a [this phrase has been censored forreasons of taste].

‘This year it’s different,’ they say. This time, it may betrue. What’s not different, though is Tom Brady. When he signed for the Patriotsin 2000, they had a grand total of zero Super Bowl wins. By 2004, they hadthree. They haven’t won any more since then, but have always been there, orthereabouts. It’s not been all down to the handsome, charming, talented, richBrady but the only season he missed, 2008 (when he was injured), was the onlytime they didn’t make the playoffs.

Tom Brady: I don't have a man-crush. Why would you think that?

The Baltimore Ravens have an incredible story in their team.It is the story of defensive tackle Michael Oher. I won’t bore you the details,but his early life was made into a movie a few years ago. It, The Blind Side,is an incredible film with an incredible performance from Oscar winner SandraBullock. How she played a 6’4”, 300lb, black, teenage boy I’ll never know! Itwould be a great bookend to the story if the young man were to pick up a SuperBowl victory.

Sandra Bullock pulling an Eddie Murphy by playing all on-screen characters.

He won’t. At least not this year as the New England Patriots are going to win this one. They’ll then go hopingto shed the annual bridesmaid dress and wear the big, frilly, white one in twoweeks time… for the fourth occasion. The Ravens will be happy if, after this,someone will take them out at all. They’re all dressed up (it’s like ‘thatdress’ from last Sunday’s Golden Globes) but have nowhere to go.

Sky Sports 2, Sunday8.00pm

Baltimore Ravens12/5, New England Patriots 1/3

New York Giants @ SanFrancisco 49ers

This is Sunday’s big game. The plucky New York Giantsventure all the way across the country to the lovely San Francisco to meet thelocal 49ers.

The Giants’ story is a familiar one to those who’ve followedthe NFL in recent years. They struggled in the regular season winning just overhalf of their games and made it to the playoffs as much because of the failuresof their divisional rivals as any real quality on their part. Once the playoffshit though, they have become a totally different prospect. Despite being unfanciedby many critics (*try not to loo suspicious here Sean*) they overcame animpressive (in the regular season) Atlanta Falcons, holding the Georgians toonly two points.

Then came one of the biggest shocks since Pope Pius IV. Upin Wisconsin, at the home of the imperious Packers, they were written off by almosteveryone (*don’t look them directly in the eyes*). They won. They wereincredible in a victory over a team many said was among the best of all time(not me this time!).

It’s been an exceptional year for the unexceptional 49ers.They’ve come off a poor season last time round to come storming to end up NFCsecond seeds this. They even beat the rampant Saints last week, albeit in thelast nine seconds.

And how have they done it?

No, I’m actually asking.

Alex Smith: He's certainly no Tom Brady.

Well, to give the factual answer, the score more than theopposition. It’s not a case of impenetrable defence like the ’85 Bears (for thepotential bluffers among you). Nor have they had an attack that goes beyondwhat you’d expect of any reasonable NFL team. And in a game where a qualityquarterback is all-important (if you don’t believe me, ask the IndianapolisColts if they’ve missed the injured Peyton Manning this year), Alex Smith isaverage. They’ve just been a few points better than nearly all of theiropponents.

That’s coming to an end though, as the New York Giants as going to come out on top come early Mondaymorning. Bear in mind though, they have proved me wrong in each of the last twoweeks.

Sky Sports 2, Sunday11.30pm

New York Giants23/20, San Francisco 49ers 8/11

Come back again on Monday for an explanation of why mypredictions were wrong, a brief mention of Lord of the Rings and an update onthat €20, 75/1 bet on the Giants. In the mean time, check out http://2011playoftheyear.nfl.com/for the best plays of the year.

NFL Divisional Playoffs - Game Reviews

2012-01-16T16:02:00.003Z

Okay, before we get started I have to defend myself. Okay, Ionly got half of my predictions right, which is bad when I backed all of thefavourites. If you give my previews a good look though you'll see that I'mpretty accurate.

New Orleans Saints 32 - 36 San Francisco 49ers

I said it would be close. In fact, I said it would be a toss-up. And so itproved. The game was won in the last nine seconds. Nine seconds! And, alright,I came down on the wrong side, but only by nine seconds.

It was a real thriller. The last quarter especially, wherethere were as many points scored then as were scored in the first threequarters.The lead changed hand four times in the last four minutes. SanFrancisco took the initiative early on and led New Orleans by 17 in the secondquarter. Drew Brees got his arms going though and there were only three pointsin it at the half.

The next 25 minutes were tight with only nine points addedto the scoreboard (six for the 49ers, three for the Saints). But the game cameto life when Sproles ran in a 44 yard touchdown to put the Saints in the lead forthe first time in the game with just over four minutes to go. A touchdown marchdown the field from the 49ers (which QB Alex Smith ran in himself from 28yards) was followed by a touchdown march by the Saints.

The Saints led by three and there was just over a minute onthe clock. It was not over and The Catch III (sequel the The Catch and TheCatch II) won it for the 49ers with only nine seconds left. Did I mention that already?

Denver Broncos 10 –45 New England Patriots

Does this result disprove God? Many people were asking if God-boyand occasional quarterback Tim Tebow loses by such a margin, then how can Godexist? But I think we all know that God doesn’t interfere in American Footballbecause he’s too busy punishing those who, for so many years, thought they didn’tneed him. That, and fucking with scientists who are trying to find the HiggsBoson Particle.

He is a fan though and when he finally sat down to watch thematch on Sunday afternoon (because he likes to TiVo Tebow) he will have beendisappointed to see one of his favourite followers (which reminds me of a joke:“Peaches Geldof has over 120,000 people following her on Twitter. She's a bitlike Jesus: relying on her Dad's fame, to get more followers”) failed so badly.

Still, I’m sure he saw elements of himself in Tom Brady. I’mnot saying Brady is God, but perhaps God Light, or Diet God. The G-Man couldn’thave played any better than Brady in the first half though, when the San Frannative made five touchdown passes. He even took up kicking in the fourthquarter to rub salt into the Broncos wounds.

Most importantly, though, I was right. Right about thewinners, right about the margin and right about Rob Gronkowski who scored threetouchdowns.

Houston Texans 13 – 20Baltimore Ravens

I was right about this one too. I said it would be tight andthat the Ravens would win.

The Ravens did win and the game, despite an eventual sixpoint victory, was tighter than a duck’s arse. There was only three pointsscored in the second half! It was a poor game to watch with both offencesfailing to get going.

The Ravens got two touchdowns, but both were the result ofTexan mistakes. They finished the game with an appalling 227 total yards. Surely,the Patriots will have enough next weekend to see off these pretenders.

The Texans can count themselves unlucky. They were missingtheir first and second choice quarterbacks and starter T.J. Yates is a rookiepicked in the fifth round of the draft last year. If either of their first twoquarterbacks were fit, they would have won this match. If they hadn’t had somany stupid mistakes they would have won this match. If they didn’t have ArianFoster they... probably wouldn’t have gotten on the scoreboard.

New York Giants 37 –20 Green Bay Packers

I could try and justify why I got this one so wrong butinstead I will just say I was close, but way off.

It was choking of a level that one only usually associates with the New England Patriots.

It’s a score line and performance that nobody had beenexpecting. It was incredible how the Giants shut down the Packers offence thathad been so good all season. Eli Manning (the lesser Manning, lest we forget)had a field day and looked every bit a quarterback capable of picking up hissecond Super Bowl ring.

17 points was a comparatively massive margin and was no less than the Giants deserved. Even with two massive decisions going against them (one where a Packers' fumble was judged to be 'down by contact' and a second where a tackle on Aaron Rodgers was harshly deem to be unnecessarily rough) they had control almost from the start.

People will look back and say that the Packers can’t run theball and can’t defend against passing as the regular season stats bear out, butthese are probably the same people who were calling the Packers the best teamof all time earlier in the season. Or maybe it was the three weeks off thatAaron Rodgers had before the game that led to the team’s poor performance.Whatever, they’re gone, the Giants go on.

Check back here on Friday for the Conference Championshippreview including Sandra Bullock, Pope Pius IV and ‘that dress’ from the GoldenGlobes.

NFL Division Playoffs

2012-01-13T16:20:00.000Z

As we hit the divisional playoffs, things get interesting.It’s this weekend that the big boys are thrown into the knockout mix and, nomatter what happens, this year’s Super Bowl champions will be in action.

So how are the games going to play out this weekend? Well,here is my preview (not that anyone reads my NFL posts):

New Orleans Saints@ San Francisco 49ers, Saturday 9.30pm

Surely the pick of the round where the NFC’s second andthird seeds meet in the city by the Bay.

Drew Brees has be making passing records for the Saints allseason and made record passing yardage last week against the Detroit Lions.They have been imperious at home all season, but lost three of their eightgames on the road. The big, open Candlestick Park is a sharp contrast to theirown indoor Superdome and may prove a decisive factor.

The 49ers? Well, they’ve been the surprise of the season. Theyare not exceptional in any given department of the game, yet seem to just wingames. They, like the Saints, won 13 of their 16 regular season games withoutanyone really knowing how. This is rarefied air for a team that hasn’t made theplayoffs in nine years and their experience, or lack thereof, could also betelling.

A toss-up, but I’m going for the Saints in this one.

Odds: Saints 10/19, 49ers 17/10

Denver Broncos @New England Patriots, Sunday Morning 1.00am

For the first time in four games the Broncos tasted victorylast time out against the tough Pittsburgh Steelers but that was in the(literally) rarefied air of the Mile High stadium. The will be taken back toearth (or sea level to be more specific) when they make the longest trip of theweekend to play the Pats in Foxborough. Tim Tebow has been the talk of the NFLthis season and ‘Tebowing’ has become a thing.His performance last week was out of the top drawer. His teammates, though,didn’t perform to the same level.

Tim Tebow tebowing. Apparently, he's praying.

Form is thoroughly on the Patriots’ side, given the eightgame winning streak they are currently on. They have made the playoffs in eightof the last nine years and each of their three Super Bowl victories have comein this nascent century. Add to that the growing sense of telepathy ofquarterback Tom Brady and tight-end (a taller, stronger type of receiver) RobGronowski.

Against the Steelers, the Broncos scored early but failed tobuild and let their opponents get back in the game. Against everyone (includingthe Broncos in the middle of December) the Patriots concede early only to stormback and claim victory.

Expect the same again; Patriotsby a decent margin.

Odds: Broncos 5/1, Patriots 1/6

Houston Texans @Baltimore Ravens, Sunday 6pm

The Texans beat somebody at home last week (I can’t rememberwho it was against) but have to travel to Baltimore this weekend to face AFCsecond seeds the Ravens. This is only their ninth season – and their first tripto the playoffs – but they are not to be ruled out.

Joe Flacco will hope that he doesn’t throw away the game forthe Ravens. He’s widely criticised as the league’s worst quarterback in awinning record. They are solid at the in defence and undefeated at home. Itdoesn’t seem to make much of a difference to the Texans whether they’re playingat home or on the road, however.

The worrying thing about this game is that the winner willbe going to the Conference Championships and be only two wins away from a SuperBowl victory. Surely that can’t happen. Ravensin a tight one.

Odds: Texans 14/5 (at which they’re not a bad bet), Ravens2/7

New York Giants @Green Bay Packers, Sunday 9.30pm

The Giants were tools last week when they beat the Falconsto prove me wrong (although it was as much down to the inept Atlantaperformance as any Giants greatness). Eli Manning will try to find hisreceivers Manningham or Manningcornedbeef with most of his passes, but the aimor their game must be to keep the ball out of the hands of the Packers offence.Their only real chance will come if the Packers fall victim to severalunconnected, unusual, unfortunate accidents as befell all those baseballplayers in that Simpsons episode.

The evil empire of the NFL in the last year. Darth Vader-in-chiefis Aaron Rodgers. He’ll throw passes that seem to need telekinetic powers andmake his opposing quarterback choke from a distance of tens of yards. TheImperial March will continue for the sixty minutes of game time here and….wait, is Star Wars just a parable globalisation and the evil of capitalism?

Darth Vader: Anakin Skywalker or Aaron Rodgers?

My mate has €20 on the Giants for the Super Bowl at 75/1. He’llbe tearing up his betting slip come Sunday night/Monday morning, however, asthe Packers are going to win thisone in a cake-walk.

Odds: Giants 14/5, Packers 2/7 (and a good price at that)

All games are live onSky Sports this weekend.

All odds are fromLadbrokes.com and are correct as of 16.00 13/01/12.

2011 In Review - Sporting Highlights 5-1

2012-01-11T17:33:00.000Z

5. Darren Clarke wins the Open Championship, July 14^th-17^th,Royal St. George’s

20 years after his debut in the competition, Darren Clarkefinally lifted the Claret Jug. The previous 19 attempts had involved somemagical moments and a few near misses, but everyone thought his time hadpassed.

If he wasn’t one of favourite golfers before, his fantasticcharacter in the 2006 Ryder Cup endeared him to everybody. It was six weeksafter the loss of his wife to cancer. He is one of the sport’s great characters– fond of a cigar, a beer and a joke – but was perhaps an underperformer givenhis many talents.

A tear or two was shed as he sank the putt, a few more whenhe lifted the trophy and there were floods as he gave his speech. Fictiondoesn’t make us feel this way.

4. Australia 6 – 15 Ireland, 15^th September,Auckland

It was worth getting up on a Saturday morning for this.That’s probably all I need to say, but I’ll go on.

Similar to the Ireland v England game, Ireland had limped tothis point with uninspired victories over Russia and USA where Australia hadbeen on a victory march including triumph in the Trinations and a mauling ofFrance the previous year.

It, too, proved to be the underdog’s day. Right from thestart Ireland were on top. Highlights include Stephen Ferris lifting up WillGenia and driving him back 15 yards and Tommy Bowe’s ultimately unsuccessfulcharge to the line in the dying minutes.

3. Ireland (329/7, 49.1) beating England (327/8, 50),Cricket World Cup, 2^nd March, Bangalore

Yes, it’s cricket. 999 times out of 1000, almost nobody inthe country would care about an Irish cricket match, but that one time in the1000, we beat England. At cricket. We beat England at cricket. No matter howmuch you say it, it is still tough to believe.

What next? England beating us at potatoes?

Kevin O’Brien gets the Spoon & The City IndividualPerformance of The Year Award^TM for his amazing batting innings. Heset a World Cup record 100 runs in just 50 balls, before being eventually runout having hit 113 runs.

England were humiliated, Ireland in raptures. We didn’t dotoo much afterwards, but who cares? We beat England at cricket!

2. Dublin 1-12 – 1-11 Kerry, All Ireland Football Final, 18^thSeptember, Croke Park

Surprised it’s not number one? Me too to an extent. In anaverage year, this would be number one by a country mile. 2011, though, wassomething different and the Dubs were just edged out by the second greatestsporting moment of my life.

It was a tough 16 years for the men from the capital. Closecalls and false dawns had been the order of the day in the meantime. Kerry hadbeen racking up the titles in this time, extending their lead in the all timeroll of honour.

The match itself was a nail-biter. It was nip and tuck untilwe looked up and Kerry had a four point lead with only six minutes left. Howdid that happen? Kevin McManaman got a goal before Kevin Nolan’s equalisingpoint. The teams shared another couple of points between them before, as injurytime ran out, Dublin were awarded a (soft) free.

Up stepped the unflappable Stephen Cluxton and he bisectedthe posts from 50 yards. Queue screaming, jumping and “See yiz in Coppers”.

1. Leinster 33-22Northampton, Heineken Cup Final, 21^st May, Cardiff

Number one. Mysecond greatest sporting memory of all time, only behind Ireland beatingHolland in 2001. Incredible. An unparalleled comeback.

Leinster had provedtheir credentials throughout the year. They played Champagne rugby that was assuccessful on the scoreboard as it was easy on the eye. The only Heineken Cupdefeat they had experienced that season was away in Clermont, and even thenthey came out with a bonus point.

Northampton, theunderdog, left the blocks the quicker of the two teams though and dominatedevery part of the pitch, especially the scrum where it looked like men againstboys. The 16 point lead they held at half time seemed like scant reward fortheir performance.

Something happenedat half time, however. Leinster came out inspired (apparently by a Sextonspeech) and came out playing with a Munster-like pride. Sexton himself ran intwo tries as Leinster kept up a scoring rate of more than a point a minuteuntil they had a winning 11 point lead.

It was clinical, itwas brutal, it was exceptional. Leo Cullen’s Stretch Armstrong catch and CianHealy’s wink to the camera. It was something the likes of which we may neversee again.

2011 in Review - Sporting Highlights 10-6

2012-01-11T14:44:00.001Z

So here is my list of sporting moments for 2011. They may betournaments, games or individual moments but, either way, they show a piece ofbrilliance in their sport. Drama, tension and suspense; thrills, spill and themoments of incredulity; these were moments that made my year.

As I’m sure you’ll gather they are coloured by my home townpride, but what honest opinions aren’t?

To start off, I’d like to highlight the low point of sportsthis year. It was a point when a man broke down in front of our eyes. Thecameras that had been following him all week averted their gaze as what mayhave been a moment of lost concentration became a horror show.

Rory McIlroy held the lead of the Masters entering the lastnine holes. He hooked his drive on the 10^th into the trees. Beforewe could turn away, he had dropped six shots and was leaning on his club withtears in his eyes. The cameras then turned away, saving the watching world fromwallowing in the man’s misery.

To come back from that to win the US Open later in the yearshowed immense mental courage and determination, but it wasn’t quite excitingenough to make the list below.

10. Ireland 24 - 8 England, 6 Nations, 19^th March, AvivaStadium

Ireland had a poor Six Nations championship overall.Stuttering victories over away in Italy and Scotland divided defeats in Cardiffand in Dublin against France. Look may not have been on our side against Wales,but it certainly was in Rome.

England came into the match having won each of theirprevious four tournament matches having scored a lot of points. There was onlygoing to be one winner, surely.

Surely not. Ireland came out and destroyed England fromminute one to minute 80. Sure it didn’t have the emotional context nor theemphatic score line of four years previous in Croke Park, but it was arguably abetter, more dominant performance.

9. Dublin 0-22 – 1-7 Kilkenny, Nationla Hurling League Final, 1^st May, CrokePark

A true David v Goliath contest. Kilkenny were All-Irelandchampions for four of the previous five years and were on their way to anotherone (though we weren’t to know that at the time). Dublin hadn’t come close toLiam MacCarthy since 1938.

Dublin fans in attendance (myself included) would have beensatisfied with a close defeat. Victory would have been an amazing achievement.Winning by 12 points was beyond belief. It was against 14 men (and should havebeen 13 by the end), but Dublin showed a level of composure that seemed tobefit a group of experienced winners and not that of preppy upstarts.

Dublin are still not quite at hurling’s top table (currentlyoccupied by only Kilkenny and Tipperary) but this showed that they’re gettingcloser.

8. Rooney bicycle kick v Man City, Premier League, 12^th February,Old Trafford

The match was delicately poised at one all. Man United werein need of a victory to keep up their lead at the top of the league. Man Citywere looking to push for a Champions League place.

The ball was played out to Nani on the right. His cross wasdeflected off the left back and it looped up into the air. Rooney tried anambitious attempt. Silence abounded for a second or two as people struggled tobelieve what they’d just seen. Skill, athleticism and flair all bundledtogether in one spectacular moment.

(It may actually come off his shin!)

7. Real Madrid 1 – 3 Barcelona, La Liga, 10^th December, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu

Football again, but this time it’s Spanish. There were quitea few Clasicos in 2011. In fact, Realand Barca played against each other seven times in total. None really producedgreat matches. The games were scrappy and foul-laden. Barcelona had the upperhand for the majority, taking away the victories (and ultimately the trophies)in the League and Champions League, leaving their bitterest if rivals with onlythe cup.

That was supposed to change come December though. RealMadrid had been having a fantastic time of it. They batted away all comers asthough they were little more than mere pests. There was a swagger to their playthat had not been seen in the capital since Del Bosque and the peak of theGalacticos. Barcelona had been, comparatively, faltering. They were alreadyseveral points behind Real and there was a feeling that a loss here could meanthat their title challenge was already over.

It was not to be though as Barcelona passed Real intosubmission and the eventual score flattered the hosts. It may not have been themost important match, but the performance was without match, especially givenit was against the second best team in the world.

6. Richard Dunne and his Iron Curtain, Euro 2012 Qualifiers, 6^thSeptember, Luzhniki Stadium

Moscow was the turning point in the ultimately successfulqualification campaign. We were dominated for 90 minutes against a talentedRussian team, but one man put his body on the line for the cause.

It was a performance Paul McGrath said was the best he’sever seen in an Irish shirt (better than his own against Italy in 1994), asRichard Dunne held back the Russian onslaught. It may have been the clearanceoff the line or the moment that he head-butted the ground (poor ground) butthere was something magical about this performance.

He exited the pitch, bloodied and with a scrawled 6 on hisjersey, as a national hero.

NFL Wild Card Weekend

2012-01-09T15:13:00.000Z

It proved to be a shock-free opening weekend to this year’s postseason. The home team won each match and, in all bar one, with a convincing score line. Still, there was action abound:

Detroit Lions 28 – 45 New Orleans Saints

Saints quarterback Drew Brees threw a record 466 yards and three touchdown passes. A blind man could see it was on the cards so has been the relentless nature of their offence. It was closer than expected though with the Lions performing well going forward and scoring on two of their first three drives. Failure to convert two first half turnovers into points proved their undoing as they couldn’t keep up with the Saints scoring regularity in the second half. The interception thrown by Matthew Stafford with 10 minutes to go was effectively the Lions last roar.

Now who would have predicted that? (Hint: me)

Cincinnati Bengals 10 – 31 Houston Texans

An odd game for many reasons. Not least because it was a black man called Arian, who led the supremacy over a team of whites. That Arian, Mr Foster to his friends, ran in two touchdowns. Texans travel to Baltimore next week while Cincinnati... well no one cares about them... except when they do this:

Atlanta Falcons 2 – 21 New York Giants

They are a Christian bunch down Atlanta way and proved it with the charitable way they went about playing against those godless city boys. Maybe they are looking to inherit the earth (given their meek performance) or maybe they thought they should defer to the High Priest of Shiloh (Eli) who they know from the Book of Samuel. They also performed some form of miracle by managing to get two points in a game.

Worse than their performance, which was pretty inept to be fair, was that they proved me wrong. The bastards!

Pittsburgh Steelers 23 – 28 Denver Broncos

The most exciting game of the round came at the Mile High Stadium where the Broncos overcame the Steelers in overtime, the NFL’s version of ‘Next Goal Wins’. The match looked like heavyweights (Steelers) against middleweights (Broncos) before the kick off, but it wasn’t s clear cut as that. In this contest, the heavyweight was suffering from leprosy. They’ve lost a number of important appendages (in running back Rashard Mendenhall and safety Ryan Clark who had to have his spleen removed!) and some of the limbs were suffering (the swelling on quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s injured ankle may not go down until March/April). It was this mangled frame who had the better of the later stages, coming back from two touchdowns behind at halftime. That was until regulation time ran out and the Broncos made an 80 yard touchdown with the opening (and thus only) play of overtime.

Check back here on Friday, when I'll have my preview for the Divisional Championships... if I get 'round to it

NFL Playoffs

2012-01-05T21:19:00.002Z

The turn of the calendar means a couple of things on the sports front. GAA takes its official month off. Soccer goes from the sublime to the ridiculous as early month fixture congestion gives way to the manic closing of the transfer window come the 31^st. There’s the FA Cup thrown in there too for anyone still interested. In rugby, the pool stage of the Heineken Cup reaches its climax before the break for the 6 Nations.

But the real sporting excitement comes on the far side of the Atlantic where the local ‘football’ reaches its ‘post season’. Yes, it’s that sport with all the ads where foot and ball only really come together in the sports name. It’s the game that lasts sixty minutes but somehow takes three and a half hours. It’s the national hobby where you get paid millions of dollars to either attack or defend, but never both. It’s the sport that is surrounded by complicated stats and strange mathematical permutations yet Americans understand it (no offense).

It can seem boring, especially in a game where both teams are struggling to make first downs (as technical as I’m going to get, I promise). When it goes right, though, it can be incredible. It’s not the threading of a needle at full speed like soccer can be; it’s more like assembling a jigsaw at full speed with 20 stone opponents who want to make you suffer.

How They Got Here (The complicated bit. Feel free to skip this section)

And the post season, or play-offs as they’re better known, is truly the business end of the sport. It kicks off this weekend, Wild Card Weekend. With each team having played their 16 regular season games (in a rather complicated yet exceeding fair fashion), the final tallies are in for each of the eight groups (four ‘divisions’ in each of the two ‘conferences’). Each of the group winners and the two best non winners, Wild Cards, in each conference (it’s usually best 2^nd places, but this year the Cincinnati Bengals managed to qualify when finishing 3^rd) head to the playoffs.

What happens now is the six qualifiers in each conference are assigned seedings of one to six as a result of their regular season performance. Seeds one and two in each conference get to bypass the first round (Wild Card Weekend) and go directly to the Divisional Playoffs, essentially the overall quarter-finals. After that, the highest ranked team play at home against the lowest, the winners going on and the losers going home. We are finally left with two Conference Champions who head off to the Super Bowl.

As an example, here’s last year’s playoff picture:

(Sorry for the crudity, I made this myself in MS Paint. Seeds in bold. Scores in Red. You can check it out here too.)

And Who Got There?

Green Bay Packers (N1, NFC Seed 1)

No one in the history of the game has had a calendar year like the Packers had in 2011. They scraped into the playoff as a Wild Card last year, but managed to upset the seedings and home advantage on the way to winning the Super Bowl for a 4^th time in franchise history. This season has seen them in imperious form yet again winning every game save a shock defeat in Kansas City against the Chiefs. If they win the Super Bowl again this year they will be considered among the best of all time.

Their defence may not be the greatest, but with Aaron Rodgers leading the attack, they continually outscore the opposition. Their final regular season game proved there is strength in depth too as they overcame Detroit Lions with a second string team.

New England Patriots (A1, AFC Seed 1)

Having been largely off the radar for so many years the New England Patriot have become the team to beat in the last decade. They have been there or thereabouts nearly every year, winning three Super Bowls. They also lost one (in 2007) when they looked like the only team ever to go through a season undefeated. In the last few years, though, they have had a tendency to choke when the pressure has been applied.

They are again AFC top seeds. Quarter back Tom Brady has found a new muse in Rob Gronkowski (their partnership is the most successful ever in the NFL regular season). They have been scoring a lot of point recently, but they have needed to. Early losses in concentration have meant they have had large deficits to overcome. Teams will not be so forgiving in the playoffs however.

San Francisco 49ers (N2)

An unexpectedly good season for the Bay Area boys. They hadn’t made the playoffs in nine years prior to finishing second seed in the NFC. It’s a team built on its defence with Alex Smith making fewer passing yards than almost every other quarter back in the NFL.

Baltimore Ravens (A2)

Like the 49ers, they don’t make too many yards. In fact, Joe Flacco is regularly branded the worst quarter back in the game. Still, he managed to lead them to second seed in AFC. Only been in existence for the 16 years, but already have a Super Bowl to their name.

New Orleans Saints (N3)

Winners in 2010, they are my tip to go all the way again. New Orleans may not ‘need it’ (as was the motto of that Super Bowl) like it did then, but maybe that means the pressure is off. Quarter back Drew Bries keeps on throwing touchdown passed and they keep on scoring big as a team.

Their regular season point difference was better than the Packers’ despite losing two more games (including a defeat at the Packers). Having to play in Wild Card Weekend may sharpen them up for the 49ers come the next round. All their defeats have come away from New Orleans but, like the Patriots, they are on an eight game winning streak.

Houston Texans (A3)

The newest team in the playoffs being, as they are, still in their ninth year. Good all-round without being spectacular in any particular aspect. They may make it through Wild Card Weekend, but that will be the best they achieve this year. But they’ve had a great day; it was just a pleasure for them to be here.

New York Giants (N4)

The worst running (rushing) team in the league. They are hugely reliant on quarter back Eli Manning. He hasn’t even had that great a season, and they’ve made the Playoffs thanks largely to a week group. Same can be said of the 2007 season when they surprised the New England Patriots in the big game. The Atlanta Falcons will fancy their chances this weekend.

Denver Broncos (A4)

Poxed to be here. Finished up the regular season with three straight defeats.

Atlanta Falcons (N5)

Playoff regulars who have never made the step up to Super Bowl Champions. At 43 years, this is the longest any team has ever gone without one. Could it be their year this year? A danger team in my book.

Pittsburgh Steelers (A5)

The most successful franchise in NFL history. They are owned by American Ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney. They have the best defence in the league with, in Troy Polamalu, the best defensive player. They have won the Super Bowl twice in the last six years and were beaten finalists last year. Not to be discounted while ‘Big’ Ben Roethlisberger is on the field conducting the action.

Detroit Lions (N6)

Like anything coming out of Detroit these days, they won’t get very far before breaking down. The Saints are going to crush them on Saturday.

Cincinnati Bengals (A6)

Don’t know and, frankly, don’t care. Might beat the Texans, but shouldn’t be in contention come the end of the month.

Fixtures

Cincinnati Bengals @ Houston Texans, Saturday 7th 21.30

Detroit Lions @ New Orleans Saints, Sunday 8th 01.00

Atlanta Falcons @ New York Giants, Sunday 8th 18.00

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Denver Broncos, Sunday 8th 21.30

All games will be shown live on Sky Sports (other sports channels are available).

2011 in Review - US TV

2012-01-04T14:38:00.000Z

So I watch a fair bit of television. In fairness, I do not watch it on a television but online. That way I avoid the inconvenience of having to be there when a show is actually broadcast. If I wish, I can watch Walking Dead before breakfast or Batman: The Animated Series at three in the morning.
It also means that I do not have to wait for programme schedulers to get off their holes and latch on to a US show when it is already in its 3rd season across that big pond to out west.
I don't doubt that I miss out on some UK TV because of this. Black Mirror is all a few of my friends have been able to talk about recently. As the conversations go on I just smile and nod. Many people have also been talking about Downton Abbey, but that's on ITV. I can't even Sky+ that shit.
Anyway, enough of my rambling, here's my Top 10 in US TV that I've been watching in 2011.

10. Walking Dead
Based on a graphic novel of the same name, it's set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies have taken over. A small group of survivors loooking for a bastion of humanity. It's characters are a little shallow, the storyline is a little light and the episodes are pretty formulaic. But it's got zombies, thousands of zombies!

9. Wilfred
Ryan (Elijah Wood) is a depressed lawyer. One day he tries to kill himself, but what he overdoses on are just placebos. When he wakes up, the neighbours dog, Wilfred, suddenly appears to him to be a man in a dog suit. Wilfred spends all day getting high, being intimate with Teddy and getting Ryan in all sorts of awkward situations.Charming in its eccentricities.

8. Bored to Death
Jason Schwartzman plays an unlicenced private investigator created by Jonathan Ames. His name is Jonathan Ames (where does he come up with his names?). Together with Ray (Zach Galifbfjusbnfsfsakis) and George (Ted Danson), he smokes weed, talks candidly about the deepest personal problems and occasionally gets around to investigating.

7. Parks and Recreation
Another of those mockumentaries (see The Office or Modern Family. Why would a documentary crew follow around a family for years?). This is the best of them. It follows Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) the deputy director to the Pawnee Parks Department. Surrounded by idiots (like Andy), cynics (April) and legends (Ron Swanson) she keeps the Parks Department together while running for city office. Now with added Rob Lowe.

6. Archer
Cartoon about a firm of disfunctional super-spies. They're all sexy-crazed, invulnerable egotists. Despicable, but one of the wittiest shows going.

5. It's Alway Sunny in Philadelphia
The nastiest people on TV keep it coming for another season. Dennis and Dee keep on being horrible people. Charlie and Frank still love their decadent squalor. Mac's gotten fat. Look out for this year's high school reunion, the baby funeral and 'Don't Diddle Kids' song.

4. How I Met Your Mother
Long past the time Friends went bad, HIMYM keeps going from strength to strength. It's safe and comfortable, but it's so deeply layered and has so many in-jokes that it continues to be funny without the characters seeming like parodies of their earlier selves. Plus it's got Barney Stinson. (sorry about the lack of a decent video)

3. Community
Heard of 'Troy and Abed in The Morning', but not sure what it is? Seen people do that weird high-five-chest-pat thing, but been confused as to what it is? Ever wondered 'what are regionals'?
You haven't been watching Community. Make a New Year's resolution to change that.

2. Mad Men
C'mon, we all wish we worked in that office.

1. Breaking Bad
The dad from Malcolm in the Middle gets cancer. Drug cooking, money laundering, infidelity, murder and car washing follow. The season four finale is the single greatest 50 minutes of television I have ever seen. Sopranos, West Wing and The Wire are all blown out of the water.

2011 in Review - Irish Albums

2012-01-03T17:08:00.000Z

I decided to go for a Top 6 in this one, because I didn't feel any of these deserved to be left out.

6. Retarded Cop – You Have the Right to Remain Retarded
It's often nice to get a short sharp burst of pop punk. It's music you don't have to think about. It's just there.

5. Owensie - Aliens
To quote from a well regarded blog from this time last year

"Q: What would happen if Jose Gonzalez started singing songs with emotional, evocative lyrics?

A: Owensie. The Dubliner is better than his Swedish counterpart though."

4. Squarehead – Yeah Nothing
They play a sort of pop punk in the same vein as Ash or early Weezer. The vocals come out like a teenager being asked to clean his room.Unfortunate that Wavves came out with an album that sounds very similar just before they did.

3. The Northern Drones – Northern Drones
It's all guitars: just jangling and droning (hence the name i supposed). Is highly divisive, but different. And it works

2. We Cut Corners – Today I Realised I Could Go Backwards
Equal parts exciting and beautiful. Great voice and witty lyrics. Simple without being simplistic. Excellent.

1. The Minutes – Marcata
Ireland’s rock and roll saviours. The album was highly anticipated and didn’t disappoint. Heavy but hooky, they kicked the ass of every other Irish release this year.

2011 in Review - Gigs

2012-01-03T16:12:00.000Z

Again, this is a list of gigs I got to see last year. It was not my most prolific year (in 2008 I saw over 120 bands live) but it was a solid effort.

5. The Vaselines - Whelan's
25 years after they formed, they finall made the 1 hour flight across from Glasgow to delight a packed Whelan's in their first ever Irish show. They sounded as good as ever and better than when Nirvana cover them.

4. Owen Pallett - Whelan's
This gig was arranged, announced and performed in a little over 24 hour. He calls Whelan's his favourite venue in the world in his interviews and it's hard to believe otherwise. He seems so comfortable in the venue whether he is covering Celine Dion, Rapeman or performing anything from his incredible back catalogue.

3. Arcade Fire - Electric Picnic

The band of a generation returning to their spiritual home.

2. Decemberists - Vicar St

‘The King is Dead’ may have been a disappointment to fans but live it was the old beloved classics. Superior banter and audience participation play their parts but it’s all about the fun and joy they play with. And the songs. They are still better than nearly anyone else out there.

1. Glasser - Crawdaddy

Sometimes you catch an artist as a perfect time in a perfect place. Like Antlers in Academy 2 in 2009, Glasser made Crawdaddy seem like a venue designed specifically to host this show….. And that a cappella encore of ‘Let no man steal your thyme’?

2011 in Review - Songs

2012-01-03T15:53:00.001Z

I may have let my avid following of new music slip this year, but I'm hardly out of the loop. Hear are a few corkers of songs to feast your ears on.

10. Lisa Hannigan - Knots
I actually tend to find Ms Hannigan a bit boring. Not this song though.

9. Last Days of 1984 - River's Edge
A new group from Dublin set to make it big in 2011. If they keep making songs like this they certainly will

8. Okkervil River - The Valley
Opener from their new album. It makes you wanna go on a war march

7. Black Keys - Lonely Boy
Also wins the award for the best video of 2011. So simple, yet fun. Black Keys aren't doing anything new, but they're doing old stuff better than it's been done before.

6. Lena - Taken By A Stranger
Finished well down in the Eurovision. I'm sorry.

I'm not sorry. That song is amazing!

5. Wilco - Art of Almost
Did Wilco go all weird and epic in 2011? For one song they did.

4. Adele - Rolling in the Deep
We've all heard a million times at this stage. It's one of those songs that invades all aspects of society. I hate how much I still like it.

3. tUnE-yArDs - Gangsta
The person to sound most different in 2011. Best song from the year's besst album.

2. Fever Ray - The Wolf
Fever Ray is amazing. This is the best song she has come up with to date.

1. Nicola Roberts - I
A member of Girls Aloud releases a solo album. It's not atrocious. This song is incredible. The world ends in 2012.

2011 in Review - Films

2012-01-03T14:53:00.000Z

Okay, so I haven't seen as many films from 2011 as I would like, or enough for this to be a comprehensive list.
So if the likes of Moneyball, Tintin, Seanna, Tree of Life, 50/50, Win Win, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kill List or Midnight in Paris were on your list, I'm sorry that I was not in a position to comment on them.
The likes of In Time, Contagion, Hugo, True Grit, Sherlock Holmes and Ides of March do not feature because they didn't make it.
These are all films released in Ireland in 2011

10. The Guard
Recipe for an incredibly funny Irish film.
-Directed by a McDonagh.
-Starring Brendan Gleeson.

9. Black Swan
A bit too weird to be top of the list. Quite similar in theme to American Psycho, but about ballet. Natalie Portman rightly won the Oscar for her performance.

8. Thor
Black Swan wasn't her best film of the year though. Thor, for its many flaws, is fun. It's entertaining. It's nice to look at. It made me happy.

7. Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Not as good as the book (which you must really check out if you haven't read it), but a very effective adaptation. Graphically violent and full of nasty people.

6. Inbetweeners
Like a long episode. That makes it good enough for any top 10.

5. Cedar Rapids
I'm a sucker for indie comedies. This one is a good one. Particularly for Isiah Whitlock Jr's constant references to 'HBO's original drama series, The Wire'.

4. We Need to Talk About Kevin
A divisive one, especially for those who've read the book. I liked it. Tilda Swinton is great as the lonely and isolated mother and newcomer Erza Miller is a revelation as her tormentor and son, Kevin.

3. Drive
Too cool for school. The soundtrack, the clothes and every girls' favourite, Bryan Cranston.

2. Warrior
The most visceral piece of film this year. It had me on the edge of my seat for its entire running time. the hair stood up on the back of my neck as the climax approached. The pure thrill glossed over all the flaw the film had.

1. The Kings Speech
A film with no flaws. Hands down film of the year.

Special Mention: Red Riding Hood
Worst film of the year by a country mile. Even with a few pints and some vodka inside me, I saw nothing on screen appealing about this film. Best original song of the year though in Fever Ray's The Wolf.

Ireland vs Estonia

2011-11-11T13:43:00.000Z

I wrote this as an audio piece, but don't have the facilities to record it.

As the rain falls on a mild Dublin it reflects the mood. In the build-up to the match tonight there is a sense of mild confidence. But around each corner though, there is someone looking to piss on your parade.

“We fare better against when we’re the underdog,” they moan.

“We can’t put teams away,” they argue.

“Estonia are better than you think,” they protest.

Bollox, balderdash and bullshit.

Under Trapp we haven’t lost to a team ranked lower than us and are undefeated away from home. Andorra, Armenia and Macedonia: They may not have been pretty but the job got done

And as for Estonia…

Wins in Belgrade and Belfast notwithstanding, Brian Kerr was able to mastermind a win over them. And that was for a team who made Estonia’s ‘mixed salad’ look like prime kobe beef. Faroe Island’s butchers, bakes and dolphin killers could only dream of the heady heights of the Azeri or Belarussian league. It’s not the tradesmen we’re up against tonight, but the gulf is still chasmic to create a phrase.

We’re missing 3 Premiership strikers? Well we’ve got another 2 in reserve. Oh and don’t forget that other guy who has scored more international goals than anyone else in this part of the world. But they’ve got a player in Middlesbrough’s reserves and that guy who lost to Shamrock Rovers.

We’ve got one of the most decorated managers in recently history, but that guy who also manages some local third division club must be a savvy character.

Their 1.3 million people don’t care about football where we skirt the borders of sanity with our fandom. We’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and banged one of the locals. They’ve seen blurred photos

Everyone will reference the left palm of a certain Frenchman with the play-offs here again, but that’s irrelevant. It’s over… gone… history.

If our result against these Baltic journeymen comes down to ONE refereeing decision we haven’t done our job.

If we’re professional in our approach, the result should be well beyond the sounding or not of one whistle.And under Trappatoni, the only adjective to use is professional

They say you can’t win the tie in the first leg, but Tallinn should be enough to get the bandwagon rolling with only a brief pit stop required in Dublin next week before it takes us Eastwards again next June. And, those of you who wish to jump on that bandwagon come June, good luck but before tonight: please don’t soil my good humour.

Sean Noone

Rugby Morning

2011-10-26T10:29:00.002+01:00

The following is a radio essay I had to do for college.

Rugby Mornings by Seán Spoon Noone

It’s too early on a Saturday morning for a reasonable person to have to rise, but I must.

I get up, slide into some clothing and sneak downstairs. It’s like Christmas mornings of old when I’d sneak about the house careful not to wake anyone else up. That was impatience. This is patriotism!

Unlike Christmas, too, the only thing awaiting me downstairs is anxiousness. The last few weeks have been a similar story.Well not every week, but occasionally there’s a heavy night of drinking to be had.

But I’ve been good. No complaints, few objections: it’s been a chore, but a rewarding one.

The living room seems desolate and cold, but the next two hours, as they say: ‘This Is Rugby Country’
On goes the TV and I wait for the colours to focus. Three smiling faces and one unrepentant scowl are there to welcome me. Oh George, will you ever lighten up. They make their predictions and we’re across to the Antipodes.

Greens and reds fill the screen and, in knockout rugby, their meanings are significant. Red is stop.
But not just stop.Stop, turn around and go home. Your journey is over.

Green is go. Go to next week, certainly, but where from there? It’s go for the imagination as much as anything.

As the anthems play, I almost sing along. I know I’m 12 thousand miles away but perhaps my voice will push the boys on to things they couldn’t normally achieve. I’ll even put my dislike for Ireland’s Call to the side for one moment. I don’t sing. There are people asleep in the house.

It’s a time for cool hearts and clear heads as the tension builds to kick off. And that’s just in the sitting room. I didn’t crack in Croke Park only a few weeks ago when Stephen Cluxton strode forward in that final minute and I won’t crack whatever the Football throws up next week. As Ronan gets the proceedings under way I breathe a small sigh of relief. I now have my game face on.

Settle down now lads and work your way into the game. It’s the cliché beaten into me over my sporting years, but it still rings through...

2^nd minute try for Wales?

That wasn’t part of the plan. They do settle eventually but I struggle to find comfort. The couch is a mixture of nails and nettles and I just can’t sit still. Leaning forward in anticipation or flopping back deep in frustration.

Stop kicking for the corner O’Gara!

A moment of relief with our first penalty is just that, a moment. Wales hit back almost immediately. We’re seven down but there’s the safety of half-time coming up.

How did this happen? Never before in this competition have we been behind, never mind looking over-powered. Even against Australia. We led from the front foot. It was no smash-n-grab.

Cliché cliché cliché.

But it’s half-time and there’s a chance to relax, regroup and get some fluids in. I imagine the players are doing similar.

Four minutes later it seems to have worked. I lose contact with the couch altogether and jump to my feet. I stifle a scream. Those unpatriotic people still sleep upstairs. Earls goes over and we’re level.

Now come the nerves however. Hand wringing. Hair pulling. Biting of the sweet ambrosia that has become my nails.

Now, we look on. A semi? Probably. A final? Possibly. Champions? Who n….. oh!

Another Wales try.

Never mind boys. It’s only 5 points. 2 penalties or a converted try and we’re back in the lee…

Oh! A third Wales try.

12 points now and it seems we’ve passed the point of no return. So, indeed, it proves.
Wales see out the final 15 minutes and move on to the semi-final. It seems the lights were red all along.

As they return to studio, they talk of what went wrong.That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it went wrong.

They must return home and I to bed. Rugby falls off my list of priorities quicker than I can make my way back to sleep. I must rest up for Armenia on Tuesday when ‘This becomes Football Country’ once again.

It’s too early on a Saturday morning for a reasonable person to have to rise, after all.

The Presidential Election

2011-10-24T16:07:00.000+01:00

With the Presidential Election finally finishing this week I feel it's my turn to throw in my tuppence worth with a summation of all those who may be our next head of state.

Mary Davis
Perhaps the most mysterious of the candidates, Mary Davis was born somewhere between 1648 and 1954 and died somewhere between 1708 and the future. During her elongated lifetime she has had many occupations including actress, nun, musician, mistress to King Charles II (the king who actually a spaniel) and President of The Welsh Folk Song Society. Her favourite song is Maggie May by former Formula 1 driver Jackie Stewart. She may or may not be a figment of the imagination.

Martin McGuinness
Martin McGuinness is an active member of the IRA (the Irish Roleplaying Association). He engages in LARPing every weekend (whether dependent) and currently acts as the benign King Darcheville of Sequintax. He used be a noted ballet dancer until he was diagnosed with 'feint shin' in 1983. He now runs Shin Feint, a support group that helps sufferers deal with their insecurities. He smells faintly of margarine.

Sean Gallagher
Sean Gallagher is best known for being a dragon. This involves harvesting soup from the volcanic soup wells of his planet and giving it to his friendly neighbours, the Clangers. He gave this us in 1972 and went on to form a moderately successful indie-pop band, The Soup Dragons. Their big hit was a cover of the Rolling Stones 'I'm Free'.

Dana
Dana is the candidate with blood on her hands. In her declaration as a US citizen she made herself individually and severally liable for any atrocities or war crimes, past and present, carried out by the United States. As a practising Catholic, she wholeheartedly endorses clerical sex abuse (DISCLAIMER: She does not!). She has won the Eurovision Song Contest twice. Once for Ireland and then, after she had her penis removed, for Israel in 1998. 'All Kinds of Everything' is officially the most evil thing ever created by man.

Michael D. Higgins
Michael D Higgins was not born, but has lived forever. Most of his life was spent in the wild regions of Norway. The film 'Troll Hunter' is a story loosely based on his capture. He played house elf Dobby in the Harry Potter film. He is viewed as a demi-god by a small group of people in West Pennsylvania. The 'D' stands for 'Dangerous'.

David Norris
David Norris is a ladies' man and international sex symbol. He is the one that Scarlett Johansson was taking 'those' pictures for and the one with Paris Hilton in 'that' tape. He is sometimes called a 'fag' because he resembles a cigarette when short of breath. His grey hair is the ash, his red face the embers, his Tip-Ex-white body is the shaft and his inexplicable tanned shins are the filter. You cannot actually smoke David Norris (without his consent).

Gay Mitchell
Gay Mitchell kicked a dog once

Diary of a GST operative - 21/08/2011 - Part 2

2011-08-21T16:13:00.001+01:00

3.10pm: I have survived. A young barrel maker relieved me from my post so that I may avail of some much required sustenance. The opportunity was jumped at an I partook of some fine nourishment. My break was all too fleeting and I have now returned to my desperate post.

3.12pm: A man asks me about a piece of paper, he smells of death. "We have lots of paper" I tell him. "This is a piece of paper you used to produce each day of the festival." I shrug and shake my head, but he persists. "It used to show all the show in the Fringe by time so you could see what was on at any one time." No amount of shrugging or head shaking will deter this man from talking to me about this piece of paper. "I'm sorry" I say eventually, "I don't know of piece of paper of which you speak but I can assure you that we do not produce such an item any more." He accepts this and slinks away, no doubt back to the hole he crawled out of.

3.16pm: A front of house worker tells me he likes NBC original comedy Community. I tell him to "shut his filthy FOH mouth". I like Community too.

3.19pm: "Do you know where the Bosco tent is?" asks a gentleman. "Yes, I do" I respond and get back to writing this. The man remains fixed. I turn back to him and find his eyes still trained on me. "Where is the Bosco tent?" he asks. I point him to number 5 on the map. He walks away seeming unsatisfied. I don't understand some people.

3.26pm: Hairy Maclary, in a Scottish accent

3.30pm: A Chinese student might go and see Pink Noise by Fork next week.

3.35pm: Newsflash: Kevin Cruise has friends! Well a friend. She still had to pay for a ticket to his show, so they're not that close.

3.40pm: Some girls are in the wrong place.

3.46pm: I feel as though I may be losing touch with humanity as, when a man comes up to enquire about Little Howard, I calculate how long I could survive using his skin as clothing and his organs for food. 14 days, if you're wondering.

3.52pm: I forgot the gaelic was on. C'mon Mayo!

3.56pm: Someone started a hoover (you use that as a generic term for vacuum cleaner over here, right?), perhaps they are going to do some hoovering.

3.57pm: The hoover has stopped. I doubt there was much hoovering done.

4.04pm: Someone accidentally called the head of CBBC a 'steaming bum-face'.

4.07pm: A man who looks like a homeless Tim Burton picks up tickets for Little Howard.

4.13pm: People seem to be enjoying my earlier post. That makes me happy. I'm not sure if I like that.
4.22pm: My mind seems to be fracturing into two distinct personalities. They tend to agree on most things though so it's not too bad.
4.25pm: Via times out.
4.29pm: I just realised how dirty Bagpuss sounds out of context.
4.33pm: Michael Parkinson is trying to sell me insurance. I told you he was a sell-out.
4.40pm: Letting Cho.
4.42pm: I meant tactile not tangible.
4.48pm: A bald man asks me if anyone has found a pink umbrella. I apologise for my lack of omniscience but assure him that I would be 95% sure that someone has given pink is a popular umbrella colour and people's propensity for leaving umbrella behind them. He then asks about his pink umbrella in particular. I tell him that I have not been made aware of anything, but advise him that pink doesn't really suit his complexion and it may not be too much of a loss in life overall. "Oh, no" he explains, "It's a child's umbrella". "Do children fall on you often?" I ask. He shakes his head and walks away. Odd chap.
4.50pm: Surely an umbrella for children would have to be very heavy, or made of some exceedingly strong material.
4.53pm: There is a man looking at some posters. He's fat or as my granddad used to say "He'd walk away from a big shite".
4.54pm: Louise came by so she'd be written about. As she is my superior, I shan't comment on my feelings on that.
4.57pm: Just talked to a lady with the surname Raper. I was tempted to say "Oh, I'm a raper too!" but I'm actually beginning to feel like a normal person again as my shift nears its end.
5.02pm: Silken Junky

Diary of a GST operative - 21/08/2011 - Part 1

2011-08-21T14:37:00.000+01:00

The George Square Theatre Box Office shift is a sad and lonely time.
Past experience has encouraged me to keep a log of my day here. I suspect it may be a useful tool in maintaining my sanity.

9.50am: I arrive at GST Box Office. All seems rather normal and sedate.
9.55am: A strange German (I assume) man comes to the desk. "I'm sorry, sir, I'll just be a couple of minutes. I'm setting up the computers" I say to him. "Yes, we shall see" comes his rather cryptic response. He then goes on to question the financial viability of adding a show at the last moment. I smile and busy myself with other matters. He continues to look at me. I shrug. He continues to look at me. I tell him I don't know. He seems to accept this.
9.57am: German (I assume) man leaves.
10.00am: GST Box Office is officially open. First customer comes to collect tickets.
10.05am: OH MY GOD! There is a queue in GST. One man waits while another collects tickets. I apologies most profusely to the man who had to wait once he approaches the counter. He looks perplexed. I ensure I am most courteous and efficient with the man hoping not to incur his wrath.
10.06am: Queue successfully managed and served. Phew!
10.07am: German (I assume) man returns and purchases tickets to Hairy Maclary, seemingly attempting to disprove his theory on the financial viability of late-announced shows.
10.12am: Jamie comes by. "Good morning, Jamie" I venture sincerely. "Hi" is his equally sincere response. "Everything okay here?" he prods. "No problems" I retort and his grilling ends.
10.26am: I start writing this.
10.28am: There is a lady talking on her phone.
10.49am: Front of house girl comes up to me. "Hello, and good morning, young lady. How may I help you this fine August morn?" is what I mean to say. "Hi" is how it sounds. "Is there lost property here?" she enquires. "No, that's at the main box office" I respond. "Main box office..." she mumbles and is gone.
10.55am: Queue again! What is the world coming to? A man collects tickets, a lady collects some. How a riot didn't break out I will never know
11.00am: I continue to write this.
11.05am: I realise that I'm not hungover. That is a surprise. I sit and consider it for several minutes.
11.11am: Via times out.
11.13am: I conclude that I have a hungover stomach, but not head. I find this acceptable.
11.19am: I am so alone! The only human contact I have is the chatter on the walkie-talkie, but no one is ever talking to me.
11.21am: I child screams.
11.23am: I consider going on a murderous rampage.
11.30am: I stroke my moustache.
11.33am: I stop stroking my moustache because it may actually make it look like I'm considering a murderous rampage...
11.37am: ... or maybe some other form of nefarious venture.
11.38am: A lady collects tickets she ordered on the phone.
11.39am: I realise that I was stroking my moustache as hundreds of children were let out of Hairy Maclary and conclude that I must get rid of my moustache.
11.42am: I have talked to about 6 people in about 3 minutes (I'm getting rather sick of this heavy workload). They have all enquired where the toilets are. I advise them that I am unaware of any show by The Toilets, but that they should consult the Fringe website to check for certain.
11.43am: A man asks me where he can go to take a slash. I direct him downstairs to the toilets.
11.46am: I make a realisation.
11.52am: A girl enquires about Eunuchs in My Wardrobe. I told her I had to get the police to help me remove them. It actually turned into quite the ordeal. They appealed to the courts claiming squatters rights. I hadn't realised it had been so long since I'd looked in that wardrobe! The judge found in my favour, however, on the basis that eunuchs have a greater life-expectancy that regular people and the time they are required to squat before rights should therefore be extended. It was a close one. "No, the show" she says. "That has nothing to do with my story" I tell her.
12.04pm: I am alone in a desolate, urban wasteland. My sense of isolation is sending me down a path of delusion and despair. Also, my till is short on change.
12.11pm: I find a piece of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of my chair. Dare I? It may feel like human contact. Something tangible in an otherwise theoretical world.
12.12pm: I dare not. It's gross.
12.16pm: Ah, Facebook. That will entertain me.
12.17pm: I remember that I have actually been on Facebook all morning. Nothing interesting is happening there.
12.22pm: Via times out again
12.26pm: Have you ever noticed that Scottish people pronounce "Yeah" backwards?
12.39pm: I must not know fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total oblivion.
12.41pm: Ooh! I have chocolate in my bag.
12.46pm: I'm trying to come up with mash-up titles for the assembly shows. It's not going particularly well. Federer vs Candy is the best I've come up with.
12.51pm: Card Hamburger.
12.53pm: Al Murray the Pub Landlord's Compete for the Penis
12.55pm: The Baby Ninja
12.56pm: Via has timed out.
1.04pm: Haven't picked up ScotsGay (yet). It's not going to be what I picture in my head. In my head there's is just one article that reads: "It's weird and it's wrong! If you have to do it, just keep it out of our sight!". I am aware that Scotland is a thoroughly modern country with open minds to a large range of sexuality, but it's funnier to imagine Scots as dour homophobes.
1.16pm: I suddenly have a hankering for some cheese. Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssseeeeeee.
1.29pm: I dozed off there. Had a dream about cheese. I was a mouse in a hamster wheel running after the cheese. It never got any closer. I was then a primate in the jungle. My high potassium diet was really blocking me up though and I wasn't feeling great, but at least I didn't have all the pressures and stresses of a human life. Waking up again was agony.
1.36pm: Two ladies came to the counter not knowing what shows they wants to see or when they may be free. I killed them and hid them under the counter. If you're working GST soon, please do not bring attention to their rotting carcasses.
1.40pm: A lady came to the counter asking what show she should see. She said she didn't speak English. She could have fooled me. I told her what I tell everyone: "Go back to where you came from!" And, yes, I do see the irony.
1.48pm: I continue to write this.
1.54pm: A lady quietly looks as some jewellery and then quietly leaves.
1.57pm: King of Drunk.
2.00pm: A lady comes to buy a ticket for a show. I struggle to hear what she says over the crackle of the walkie-talkie beside me. I guess. I guess wrong. Oh well, no exchanges, no refunds.
2.02pm: 7 Day Holiday.
2.12pm: Someone looking at jewellery. Not sure if it's a man or woman.
2.14pm: It's a woman.
2.17pm: No, wait, it's a man!
2.26pm: And now it's time for everybody's favourite game: Fat or Pregnant? I'm gonna go with fat on this on.
2.30pm: The isolation, along with a growing hunger is making me weary now. Though the sun is out, the light seems to be fading and it's getting colder. These may very well be my last sane words...

Champions League Final

2011-05-27T17:16:00.000+01:00

So here we are. The biggest prize in club football. The reason people the world over invest millions of whatever currency they have to hand. The reason players are paid a king’s ransom, allowing them to bang everyone from beauty queens to grannies. The biggest prize in football three out of every four years. The Champions League Final. (So important is the match, and the competition as a whole, they can defy a power as great as the English language and no one pays a blind bit of notice. Apostrophes are important people!)

And this year, we should be in for a good one. Recently crowned champions of the two best leagues in Europe battle it out for the second time in three seasons. Barcelona had the better of it last time round in one of the most one-sided two-nil victory you’re likely to see and are big favourites with the bookies again this time. Both teams enjoyed a relatively smooth path to the final (each including victory of their respective domestic runners-up) and thoroughly deserve their place. So what are they going to serve us up tomorrow night?

In the blue and red corner we have FC Barcelona. Currently being lauded in many quarters as the best team of all time, no one plays football like Barcelona. No one passes like Barcelona. Nobody attacks like Barcelona. Nobody has Messi like Barcelona. Nobody has the sense of moral superiority like Barcelona. Nobody beats Barcelona, almost. Their saunter to another league title saw them only tasting defeat twice and amassing an exceptional 96 points. Oh, and they beat Real Madrid 5-0 along the way.

Their tiki-taka passing game is the envy of the world. They maintain possession until opponents grow dizzy from chasing shadows and then slip it to one of their adequate strike force. So dominant can they be, midfield metronome Xavier Hernandez – Xavi to his friends – often racks up more passes in a match than the opposing team! If he gets tired, there’s always Andres Iniesta to pick up some of the slack. Or Messi to beat a few defenders. So good are these men at playing football, they even make Pedro Rodriguez look good (come on, I’d probably score 15-20 goals a season if I had Xavi and Messi in my team!).

When they don’t have possession, they work like no one else to get it back. Shake David Villa off your tail and there’s Messi or Iniesta or Busquets biting at your ankles. And it works. In matches this season, they’ve had Dani Alves, Mascherano, Pique and Maxwell as their back-line. Three of them aren’t defenders and the one who is was rated below Johnny Evans in the pecking order when he was in the Manchester United side. They simply don’t have to defend because it’s all been done for them 60 yards up the pitch.

Yet, for all this, Barcelona have a distinctly nasty element. They dive, they cheat, they harangue referees and they do it all while claiming the moral high ground because of the beauty of their football. Their players regularly, and be under no illusions, I mean regularly, go to ground holding their faces in cynical tactics to get opponents sent off. Sadly, it is, like their possession and closing down games, effective.

In the all red corner, Manchester United. What can be said of them? They’re good without being spectacular. They’re effective without being clinical. They’re solid without being impregnable. They’re a vintage but not a classic.

There’s been a lot of talk that this United aren’t good. This simply is not the case. You don’t win the Premier League as a bad team. The slip-ups of your rivals can only do so much, they still had to go out and win it themselves. They may not have done it with the swagger of previous victories but they have been an efficient machine. The same one that’s been running since 1993 and doesn’t look ready to stop yet

It might not be enough against Barcelona, however. Midfield, where United have looked weakest all season, is especially an area of concern. Giggs’ aging legs (not to mention his recent media exposure) and Michael Carrick (with whatever it is he brings to the table) will have a job on their hands facing up against Xavi and Iniesta. Ferdinand and Vidic, despite looking imperious as a partnership in Europe all season, are facing a threat like no other.

Their greatest chance must come from playing off the front foot. Pushing forward off Valencia – brilliant since his return from injury – and Rooney should stretch the back-line and create space for Manchester’s favourite hombre, Javier Hernandez. And there’s always the wily old head of Paul Scholes. A man Xavi called the greatest midfielder of the last 20 years is likely to retire at the end of the match is unlikely to go out with a whimper… if he gets on the pitch.

Whether any of this is enough to overhaul Barcelona will be answered come 9.45pm tomorrow. The bookies say Barca, and bookies aren’t chumps.

Seán Noone

27^th May 2011

Leinster v Northampton Saints - A View From the Stand

2011-05-25T13:09:00.002+01:00

Leinster 33

Northampton Saints 22

Ultimately, this will be one of those ‘Where were you when…’ days. Where were you when a dismal Leinster were staring down the barrel of the heaviest defeat in a European final only to come storming back to a convincing victory in the second forty minutes? Where were you when all those first half tackles were missed and the Leinster scrum was being destroyed? Where were you when Jonny Sexton crossed over twice or when Ian Madigan took the ball out of the ruck and cleared to the safety of touch and the relief of the final whistle?

My answer shall forever be (and I feel no sorrow for gloating) Block L10, Row 29, Seat 21. The Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, back row in a section of a few thousand Northampton Saints fans, eight of us Leinster fans rebelled against the green and black tide.

As the build-up began, I admitted, undoubtedly arrogantly, that I hadn’t contemplated a Northampton victory. Leinster were going to win and that was fact. As the game kicked off I was convinces: Leinster in a reasonably comfortable eight or nine point victory.

Eight minutes in, though, I had to bight my lip. After a flurry or missed tackles, Phil Dowson crossed for a deserved Saints score. “An early blip” I explained to any willing to listen, “like the first try for Toulouse”. But more tackles were missed and, what possession Leinster had, they started to cough forward. O’Driscoll, BOD almighty himself, wasn’t able to turn on the after-burners with the line in sight. Things were going wrong. And the scrum, THE SCRUM!, where Leinster had been so solid all year: Northampton tore through it like wet tissue paper. Even the sin-binning of Mujati didn’t help as the Saints outscored Leinster 7 points to 3 during his enforced hiatus.

We sank deeper and deeper into our seats as the fans in front of us began to find their voices. Some cheered, some sang, some gloated. Leinster heads sunk to hands and the occasional defiant cry of ‘Leinster, Leinster, Leinster’ was drowned in a sea of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’. Northampton crossed twice more to put up 22 points at the half. Jonny Sexton knocked over two penalties to save us from a white-wash.

“Your boys are being hammered up front” opined the mini Lawrence Dallaglio to me at half time.

“We need a new prop, if not two” came my response.

But the second half saw no new prop. The only change saw Jennings replacing the, ultimately, unfortunate Kevin McLaughlin. We contented ourselves with the fact that it was only (only!) 16 points at the restart and two converted tries and a penalty would see Leinster in the lead. It may have been hope-beyond-reason but it was the only hope we had.

But something changed in the second half. The Leinster Lions found their courage – no Dorothy or Tinman needed – and their roar. The Saints, obviously intent on inheriting the Earth, showed a meekness that betrayed their first half domination. The sea of green and black in front of us went still. The sea of green and black on the pitch parted.

Four minutes in and Leinster had pulled 7 points back. Sexton’s conversion hit the same post as Myler’s had done at the first half’s closing. Myler’s came back to him, Sexton’s crept over for the extra two. The gap was now 9 and Saints were in sight. Leinster hands and feet both quickened and the lines were hit hard.

D’Arcy went over after a multiple phase move but the TMO decided in Saints’ favour. The opponents’ concrete wall was beginning to give a little and, as Sexton crashed over again, it was a 2 point game. We couldn’t sit down. Every tackle, every pass, every ruck and maul was felt by us outnumbered eight. Cheers hugs and hi-fives emanated from our octet as they disappeared around us. Resurgent Leinster against a wilting Northampton.

But the scrum, what of the scrum? As the first one of the second period settled, I looked across to Mini Dallaglio. “If we only concede 3 off this I’ll be happy” were my despairing words. But no! It was solid. They held it solid. And again, it was inert. Slowly, slowly, slowly, Leinster turned the screw and had the Northampton scrum going backwards. Had the teams changed jerseys at halt-time? Surely these weren’t the same sides. And there it was…

Fifty five minutes in Leinster’s front row force Northampton up and Jonny has a kick to take the lead. Nerves? Not an ounce. Sexton’s on fire. Leinster’s ‘Champagne Rugby’, which had cut a swathe through Europe all year, was back.

This was Leinster’s to lose now and did we feel it on the touchline? We were pacing back and forth, stuck in a world or euphoria and incredulity. There was no sense of this on the pitch as the relentless Lions tore through the Saints again and again. The lead was four by the 60^th minute and, come the 66^th, Leinster had scored 27 in 26 minutes and Leinster had a comfortable lead. Cullen’s Stretch Armstrong, one-handed catch in the build up to the third Leinster try was the epitome. They had gone in at halftime mortals and returned as Gods.

Not that we felt any comfort in the crowd. Every time a Saint got his hands on the ball, there was worry. Fingernails were fast becoming nubs, hand were being wrung and hair being pulled at. Ashton’s break sent fear down the fans spines until Nacewa’s unmerciful tackle brought him to ground and the attack to an end.

Time ticked on all too slowly. It wasn’t until the clock reached 78:00 that we knew it. It was fact. You don’t score 12 points in 2 minutes. We could breathe, we could relax. We could gather our composure before…

80:00 and Ian Madigan takes the ball from the back of the ruck, finds touch and sends the blue half of the crowd into raptures. Leinster are European champions again!

It was not a David v Goliath story. It was no triumph of good over evil. Nor was it a Hollywood ending. It was all too real, yet unbelievable for that.

This was special, this was unprecedented, this was unique.

It was agony. It was ecstasy. It was exhausting. And that was just me on the sideline.

Sean Noone

Season in Review

2011-05-17T13:54:00.000+01:00

So here we are. It’s all done bar the shouting. League titles have been sewn up in Europe’s four big leagues. National cups are being divided out by teams not good enough to win their leagues. Only the small matters of the Europa League (seemingly coming to Dublin without any fans – but more on that at a later date) and Champions’ League finals to keep our football appetites sated until August. That and Sky Sports News’ ‘round the clock transfer watch.

But, facing a summer without the beautiful game the question must be asked: what have we learned?

Let’s face it, not a lot. Nothing new anyway.

Well, let’s start with England and the Premier League (you know what they say, write about what you know). Our main insight this year is that United are good at winning, or perhaps not losing. But, it the last twenty years hasn’t thought you this, it’s amazing you can even read this article. Their ability to do just enough is unparalleled. The only real test they will face comes in Wembley in two weeks’ time.

Chelsea, this season’s bridesmaids, have proved resilient if unspectacular. They pound opponents into submission with power and long-range shooting.

Arsenal again showed an ability to bottle it when trophies were within their reach (they lost the Carling Cup to Birmingham for God’s sake!).

Man City, hampered by their manager’s defensive tactics, threw just enough cash at attacking players to squeeze fourth place.

Spurs were attractive yet lightweight (they certainly didn’t have the squad to compete domestically and in Europe).

For Liverpool, the sacking of Benitez was a false dawn.

Predictions for next season:

United will be good at winning
Chelsea will be resilient if unspectacular
Arsenal will bottle it
Man City will spend cash until the oil well runs dry
Spurs will be attractive yet lightweight
Liverpool will learn that King Kenny is yet another false dawn

In Spain there were, surprise surprise, no surprises. Barcelona helped to develop the theory that they are the greatest football team ever assembled by strolling to a third successive league title. They also showed they are among the greatest collection of divers and cheaters currently playing the game. Like United, their big test comes in Wembley in two weeks’ time.

The only thing Real Madrid showed was that they are not as good as Barcelona. They swept away all before them in every competition they played only for those crazy Catalans to foil them at the business end.

Everyone else seemed content to form a guard of honour for their more prestigious league-mates to stride through.

Predictions for next season:

Barcelona will continue to make friends, with fantastic football, and enemies, with diving and cheating
Real Madrid won’t be as good as Barcelona
Everyone else will stand back and watch

Italy was a stronger case of the champions being the best of the bad than even England. Having assembled a front line consisting of Robinho, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexandre Pato, Milan had Serie A in the bag come 1^st of September.

Inter aren’t the team they were under Mourinho.

Every other team in the league works on the assumption that the combination of a star player or two thrown into a team of hard-working journeymen will bring success. The evidence of Napoli (3^rd) and Udinese (4^th) does give weight to this argument though.

Prediction for next season:

Milan will be there or thereabouts
Inter will be there or thereabouts
Juventus will be there or thereabouts
Someone else will add one or two star players to a team of hard working journeymen and will cause a stir

The only question in Germany is which Bayern Munich will show their face. Given that this season started with an even year, the chances were that it would be Bayern Scheisse. So it proved.

Borussia Dortmund were the team to step into the place of the biennial champions and had the league in the bag since Christmas.

Schalke did the Bundesliga proud by getting to the Champions’ League semi-final and then proceeded to show it up by their performance in the tie itself.

Prediction for next season:

Bayern to stroll to league success (the season starts with an odd year after all)
Dortmund will lose all of their good players and sink back to mid-table obscurity

Seán Noone

Reviews: Yuck v Nervousystem

2011-05-17T13:47:00.001+01:00

Review: Yuck – Yuck (2011) & Future Kings of Spain – Nervousystem (2007)

Yuck: 4/5

Nervousystem: 2.5/5

Why, you may ask, am I reviewing two albums at the same time? Neither album is new. Yuck is three months old while Nervousystem is closing in on its fourth birthday. Neither album is likely to impinge on general public consciousness. In fact, you’d probably require more than a passing interest in alternative music to have even heard either name previously. And what have these new London upstarts (Yuck) got in common with possibly defunct (I haven’t been able to find any evidence of either death or survival) Dubliners?

Well, more than you might think. Starting with the ‘judging a book by its cover’ angle, they’ve both got awful names. Yuck is a bad word. Not that it’s a curse word; it just has no aesthetic value whatsoever. It’s not as though there is even any onomatopoeic value in it. Future Kings of Spain just sounds too much. Why not just Kings of Spain (you were there before Kings of Leon, lads), or even the still bad but not quite as bad Future Kings? But they’ve each made their beds and in such they must lie.

The most substantial similarity, of course, is the music. The opening few bars of ‘Get Away’, Yuck’s opener, is so close to the start of ‘Guess Again’, Nervousystem’s track 1, that you may have thought you put in the wrong CD. They are like twins. They’re not identical, but there’s no denying the similar parentage.

That drone of a guitar noise, which kicks in right from the off is borrowed from the likes of Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins, and is ever present in both albums. Chord progressions are similar in both and the voices of Daniel Blumberg (of Yuck) and FKOS’s Joey Wilson could be mistaken for each other rather easily, although Mr Wilson’s occasional screams are undoubtedly his own. Even the themes – frustration, disillusionment, disappointment, occasionally anger – are similar in both.

So why have Yuck come out with this album when Future Kings of Spain trod in the very same steps almost four years beforehand? In fairness, it’s quite probable that Yuck have never heard of their Irish predecessors, never mind listened to their sophomore album. Nervousystem didn’t get much attention beyond these shores.

Any why, when the two albums are so similar, are Yuck currently riding high on a wave of international press coverage while Future Kings of Spain disappeared quietly into the background? Because Yuck is the album that Nervousystem should have been. Yuck bites where Nervousystem gnaws. Yuck has light and shade where Nervousystem only has enduring twilight. Yuck hits when Nervousystem meanders. Yuck is a journey while Nervousystem is inert.

The true difference is song writing. Yuck’s just seems better structured. They know when they need change things up and when to keep them the same. They aren’t afraid of the ‘verse-chorus-verse’ structure when the song requires it. They are willing to back off for a quiet song (like ‘Stutter’) before ramping it back up to eleven with the next one (‘Operation’).

Nervousystem fails many of these tests. They are too often guilty of overplaying songs. The tracks often go a minute or so over what’s required in FKOS’s attempts to be dynamic and throw as much as possible into it. ‘Syndicate’, for example, endures for eight and a half minutes where it could have been done and dusted in four. It, too, can be tough to distinguish a track from the one before it such is their desired to start at a sprint and not let up until the distance (the 50 minute running time) is covered.

I knew from the first time I heard it that Nervousystem missed a trick. It now turns out that Yuck is it.

Seán Noone

Eurovision 2011

2011-05-13T17:54:00.002+01:00

Love it of loathe it, the Eurovision’s back for another year. Revolutionary in its early days, the Eurovision was the first ever show to be broadcast live on a continental level. It gave a divided Europe means of competition to promote similarities and encourage friendships. It was either that or have another war. The song contest won by a narrow margin.

It has given birth, again for good or ill, to the careers of ABBA, Celine Dion, Vicky Leandros, Izhar and the Alphabeta and Bobbysocks among others. More importantly, it gave us Ruffus and ‘Eighties Coming Back’ which finished twenty-first for Estonia in 2003. It has done more to bring peace to Europe than the E.U., U.N, NATO and the Pope combined, if you’re to listen to the European Broadcasting Union’s propaganda.

Each participating nation submits a song which is performed live on the night. Each country then apportions points (1-12) based on which other countries you have been most recently in a bloody war with. The winner is the country with the most blood on their hands (and, consequently, points on the board) come the end of the night. This explains the success of bloodthirsty Serbia in recent years with respect to neutral countries such Switzerland and Ireland.

It’s quirky. It’s camp. It’s compelling viewing.

This year we’re in Dusseldorf after last years’ victory by German jailbait Lena with the catchy Satellite. She’s back (and a year older!) and vying to be the third person to win it twice. First, of course, was Johnny Logan. Second was Dana, who won it for Ireland in 1970 and then, after a sex change operation to become a woman, won it as Dana International for Israel in 1998. Her attempt to win it for a third time this year was ended at the semi-final stage.

She has a job on her hands though if her, strangely prophetic, ‘Taken by a Stranger’ is going to keep the contest in Germany for another year. The bookies have her just inside the top ten beside Hungary’s Kati Wolf (who is also challenging Dana International for the secondary award of least convincing woman) and some Amish kid singing for Finland.

The top four front-runners are well ahead in the betting, however. At 10/1 you can throw your money away on boy-band du hier Blue. That’s right, Lee, the guy who Simon Amstell tore apart on Buzzcocks, the other guy and Token are back. And this time, They Can (get it? The song is called ‘I Can’. See what I did there?). But, without having had a semi-final to contend with, it’s hard to know what the European public thinks of these four men who really should go and do something with their lives.

Third favourite is Ell/Nikki from the fictitious Azerbaijan. Rumour has it that Azerbaijan was invented after the EBU president discovered it used all his letters and landed on a triple word score in a particularly competitive game of Scrabble. To prove it exists, he granted a homeless man entry to the succeeding Eurovision Song Contest as the Azeri entry. No further explanation as to their continued presence has been forthcoming. Their 2011 entry, ‘Running Scared’ is rather good though.

Then comes Ireland’s, and now Europe’s, favourite, mildly-retarded, identical twin boys at 4/1. When their powers combine, John and Edward Grimes (any rhyming is unintentional) become Jedward. Historically they only exist as means of annoyance, but some bright spark actually put a good pop song behind them and sent them off to Dusseldorf unsupervised. There they have become a hit. The cruelly insensitive ‘Jedheads’ are selling like hotcakes (come on, it’s like everyone ironically carrying around crutches because one of the competitors has cerebral palsy). Their chances are good and, as I’m sure you know, ‘Ireland needs this’!

Favourites though are France with ‘Songu’ sung by Amaury Vassili. It’s shit, he’s a dick. It’ll probably win.

Happy voting tomorrow everybody

Seán Noone

13^th May 2011

P.S. for those of you participating in the Eurovision Drinking Game remember: the barmen can be charged if you die from alcohol poisoning but they are unlikely to go to prison.

Manchester Playlist

2011-04-16T14:35:00.000+01:00

Given it’s the day of the FA Cup semi-final between two Manchester teams, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a Manchester playlist. Manchester has provided us with the best of music for the last forty years, with more great bands originating from the area than almost any other place on earth. I have taken a rather liberal view of Manchester in the below playlist so don’t be dicks and say shit like “uh, 10cc are from Stockport, ya thick!” because I know.

1. Badly Drawn Boy – The Shining: I’ll ease you quietly into this. The opening track to the Mercury Prize winning ‘The Hour of the Bewilderbeast’, it’s, in my opinion, one of the best English singer-songwriter songs ever released.

2. 10cc – Dreadlock Holiday: One of the earliest break through Manchester bands, 10cc were part of the 70s art-rock revolution. A song about cricket from a football-mad city. And, come on, it’s just a guilty pleasure.

3. Elbow – Grounds for Divorce: A band who have grown a huge following over the last twenty years. Personally, I’m not convinced. I can’t deny this is a classic, however.

4. New Order – Crystal: A band born out of the ashes of Joy Division (coming up later), New Order had a good time of the 80s. My pick though comes from 2001. I don’t like Blue Monday.

5. Chemical Brothers – Let Forever Be: The first song a came across from these leading electronica duo. They’re done alright for themselves considering nearly all their songs sound like a re-mix of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by The Beatles.

6. Ian Brown – FEAR: No man more Manchester, this is the best he has done on his own. A Brit-pop classic.

7. Morrissey – Irish Blood, English Heart: Moz right back at his best. Spitting out lyrics about modern Britain. Cracking rock track backing him up to.

8. Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t): A two and a half minute punk classic.

9. Oasis – Masterplan: They had to be on the list. I struggled to decide between this and ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ which are my two favourite Oasis songs.

10. Happy Mondays – Kinky Afro: If only for the video with Shaun Ryder getting his dance on. Bez was there too. He was just being Bez.

11. Doves – The Outsiders: Despite the greater commercial and critical success of their earlier stuff, especially ‘The Last Broadcast’, I’ve gone for The Outsiders off ‘Kingdom of Rust’. It rocks like they’ve never done previously.

12. Joy Division – Transmission: Almost single-handedly created the Manchester scene for the 80s and 90s. Without them, this playlist wouldn’t exist. Their influence can’t be understated. This song is miles better than Love Will Tear Us Apart by the way.

13. Stone Roses – I Am The Resurrection: The most vain song title of all time? Probably. It’s just another chart friendly Stone Roses song for the first three and a half minutes. Then, it grows legs and runs, instrumentally, for further four and a half. Epic!

14. The Smiths – There is a Light That Never Goes Out: If you didn’t know they were going to be there, I’m sorry but you’re an idiot. The only question was the song. This one just about squeezes it. Check out the video to remember what the 80s were really like.

Apologies if you feel I left anything out (except for The Verve, I feel no remorse about that). I'm especially sorry for not Sitting Down next to James, Stayin'' Alive with the Bee Gees, falling from the Stars straight into the arms of Simply Red or Coming At Ya, Cleopatra, but I just didn't have the space. Next time maybe.

Red Riding Hood Playlist

2011-04-14T12:29:00.000+01:00

With Red Riding Hood on general release tomorrow, I thought it would be a good topic on which to start a new (possibly regular) feature. Needless to say, the songs I looked for had to have something to do with wolves or forests. I found no shortages.

Okkervil River - A Forest: Just an instrumental one to get going.
Cathy Davey - Little Red: From the closet musician to Red Riding Hood herself comes a song about Little Red Riding Hood. It's like the fish just jumped into the boat. All I had to do was whack it with the oar.
My Morning Jacket - Into The Woods: While this song's lyrics are unusual and off the point of the story, the mention of the woods and the music itself makes it sound very Brothers Grimm.
The Decemberists - Isn't It A Lovely Night?: It just sounds like a still night in the forest.
Fever Ray - The Wolf: Form the soundtrack. Every bit as good as you'd expect from Karin Dreijer Andersson, but with an immense power you've not heard before. Played this song on repeat when I first came across it.
TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me: The story of a man trying to deal with his animal emotions. Seems to be the story the film tells.
Portugal. The Man - The Woods: It's about the woods. 'Nuff said.
Bloc Party - This Modern Life: 'To be lost in the forest, to be caught adrift': for these lines alone it has to be in this playlist.
Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do: 'In time we will show the world why the world made us'. Wolves as a consequence of the world around them. There's a howling that goes on through the song too which is pretty cool.
Bill Withers - Grandma's Hands: A bit o' Bill goes down well at any time and here, in a story of a girls grandmother being eaten (although I don't know if that's int he film), it's poignant too.
Queens Of The Stone Age - Someone's In The Wolf: I can almost guarantee now that any playlist I do will have either QOTSA or Radiohead in it. This song about a werewolf seemed more fitting than Radiohead's 'A Wolf At The Door', essentially a song about kidnapping.
Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds: It's in the trailer for the film and it's awesome!

And here, you lucky people is that Fever Ray song:

10 Reasons United Will Get Past Chelsea Tonight

2011-04-12T16:52:00.000+01:00

Just for fun, I thought I'd knock this up. It'll be taken down immediately should the result go anyway other than the expected, however.

1. Home advantage.

United don’t lose at home. In fact, they nearly always win at home. Only three times this season have they failed to win a match played in Old Trafford.

2. Away Advantage.

Only twice in Champions League history has a team lost the first leg of a round at home and still managed to go through. Chelsea need to buck an overwhelming trend to do so tonight.

3. Experience.

United have three players – in Giggs, Scholes and Van der Sar – who have been winning trophies consistently for the best part of twenty years. These three, between them, have as many medals as the entire Chelsea squad. That has to count for something.

4. Pace.

Chelsea have a select few quick players, United have pace all over the pitch. With Chelsea needing to push forward and attack, United on the break will be a serious threat.

5. Alex Ferguson.

The most successful manager in British football history is outfoxed by no man. While he may have too much respect for Carlo Ancelotti to pay mind-games, he has the tactical nous to curb the Chelsea threat.

6. Fernando Torres.

He will give the ball away and Chelsea attacks will break down. Ancelotti will play him. Abrahmovich says so.

7. Javier Hernandez.

Turns up in the right place time after time. Sooner or later the ball will break in the Chelsea box and Chicharito will be there, ready.

8. Rooney.

Wayne Rooney has been on fantastic form recently. Whether it’s a hat-trick against West

Ham, telling the camera to “F**k off” or a calm side foot into the corner in the first leg, he’s been irrepressible of late.

9. The Grind.

United have ground out results they haven’t deserved all season (perhaps the last 15 years in all honesty) whereas Chelsea have dropped points they shouldn’t have. Just look at the first leg. If this game becomes a war of attrition, only one team will come out on top.

10. Referee.

Referees give Man United decisions in Old Trafford.

The Noughties in Alternative Music

2011-04-12T15:03:00.000+01:00

’00-’09 A-Z

Sorry for the rehashed content but it’s all you’re getting. I complied this in Dec ’09 mostly because I couldn’t decide on a top albums list. An alphabetical list seemed the best way to organise my thoughts. I’ve now included a little blurb about each band listed.

A. Arcade Fire

In ‘Funeral’ they released the best album of the decade. Immediate, catchy, beautiful. ‘Neon Bible’ was somewhat of a disappointment, but still had the fantastic ‘My Body is a Cage’.
Or

Arctic Monkeys: Went from unknown teenagers to NME gods in weeks. Not as good as all that but they still produced moment of gold.

Animal Collective: Creators of the most magical dream pop. They take a bit of listening to to appreciate though.

Art Brut: The name means outsider art. “It could be by a mental patient, or a hillbilly, or a chimpanzee.”

B. Bloc Party

Hit the indie rock scene with plenty of expectation. They delivered. Certainly, their first and third (a more electro rock affair) albums did. A serious force to be reckoned with live too.
Or

Black Lips: Fine post punk. Check out ‘Good, Bad, Not Evil’

Bat for Lashes: If Florence & the Machine went all gothic.

Bright Eyes: Prolific singer/songwriter. Check out ‘I’m Wide Awake it’s Morning’

Bon Iver: ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ is the most heart-wrenching album of the decade

Battles: Math rock pioneers, if you like that sort of thing.

C. Chalets

The Irish album of the decade was ‘Check-In’. Light, fun, upbeat, electro-indie of the highest order. Unfortunately, they couldn’t go on to produce anything else as a group.
Or

CSS: Like a Brazilian Chalets. ‘Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above’ was everywhere in ‘06/’07

Circulatory System: I actually forgot how good these guys were until I picked up this list again. Brief indie-pop gems, high on distortion.

Cake: Have so far failed to release a solid album, but with songs like ‘Short Skirt, Long jacket’, ‘The Distance’ and ‘Love You Madly’, deserve their place on the list.

D. The Decemberists

Folk rockers of unmatched creativity. Each song tells its own unique story, whether it’s the 3 minute ‘A Cautionary Song’ or the 15 minute saga of ‘The Crane Wife’. Charming, witty and insightful, they’re a band everyone should be listening to.
Or

Daft Punk: Pioneers of dance music. Nothing else needs to be said.

Death From Above 1979: Just a Bass, drums and vocals. Brilliant dance punk.

Dandy Warhols: I like them and am feeling bohemian like them.

E. Electric 6

More than just ‘Gay Bar’, their debut ‘Fire’ was actually very good. Follow up ‘Senor Smoke’ was decent. Others: not so much. Dancy, upbeat, fun.
Or

Eels: Singer-songwriter who turns horribly depressing themes into uplifting pop songs.

F. Flaming Lips

Despite being around since 1983,’ 00-‘09 was their best period. It began with ‘The Soft Bulletin’ (okay that was late ’99 but gimme a break, I didn’t hear it til a few years later) and continued through ‘Yoshimi…’ and ‘At War with Mystics’ to ‘09s ‘Embryonic’. Their power-pop and prog-indie has been hugely influential, catchy and radio-friendly.
Or

Flight of the Conchords: Kiwi comedy folk, if you’re into it.

Fight Like Apes: Continued where the Chalets left off… if the Chalets got punky and started to write about 1990s TV shows.

Fucked Up: Best hard-core punk band of the decade.

Fuck Buttons: Post electronica. (See also: Holy Fuck)

Franz Ferdinand: Music for girls to dance to.

Final Fantasy: Emotional and beautiful songs based on a videogame series using just a violin. Now called Owen Pallett.

Futureheads: Indie rock, post punkers. Their self-titled debut is brilliant.

G. Gogol Bordello

They are, to use their own words, gypsy punks. They sound The Pogues if they were from rural Eastern Europe or System of a Down, if they calmed down and played acoustically.
Or

Go! Team: Upbeat, dancy garage rock.

Girls Aloud: A guilty pleasure here.
Grizzly Bear: Ambient/psychedelic indie. Yeloow House is the album to check out.

H. Hot Chip

Like LCD Soundsystem, they produce indie electro that somehow suits any situation.
Or

Hives: Were right there when The Strokes ‘changed’ music in 2001.

I. Interpol

May have made a career out of ripping off Joy Division, but other bands (notably Editors) have made a career from ripping off Interpol.
Or

The Immediate: The other lost gems of the Irish scene. Conor O’Brien went on to form Villagers, but the original was better.

J. Justice

They have stolen Daft Punk’s crown. Born from a Paris college radio remix competition, they are the new kings of dance music.
Or

Jape: Richie Egan plays in almost every Irish band. His own is the best.

K. Kings Of Leon

Before they lost it (around the time of ‘Sex on Fire’), they looked like the saviours of rock n’ roll. Who cares if you couldn’t understand what they said, it made sense.
Or

The Kills: Top quality indie-rock. Simple as.

The Knife: Swedish electro. Not the type you can dance to though. Performed the original version of ‘that song from the ad with the ping-pong balls’.

L. LCD Soundsystem

Indie electro. Came onto the scene with the very dancy ‘Daft Punk is Playing at My House’ and ‘Tribulations’ but got more reverential as like passed. Made more emotional electro than anyone else.
Or

Les Savy Favs: Punk/post-hardcore out of New York.

M. Mars Volta

Progressive hard rock? Post metal? Elements of jazz and Latin American music also abound in this very left-field band. One of their albums was described as sounding like ‘An explosion in a guitar shop’. Undoubtedly a marmite band.
Or

Muse: The world’s biggest band at the moment.

Modest Mouse: Alt-rock sea shanties.

McLusky: Post hardcore from Wales. Their old singer was a sex criminal.

My Morning Jacket: Ambient/psychedelic rock. ‘Z’ is a classic album.

N. National

You all know them now, but I knew them before. Fact.
Or

Neon Neon: A concept album about John DeLorean by the guy out of Super Furry Animals? Yes, please.

O. Outkast

‘Ms Jackson’ to ‘The Whole World’ to ‘Hey Ya!’. The only rap music on the list; it’s here because it’s the best. Stankonia is a classic album.
Or

Of Montreal: Progressive indie rock. Their live shows are weird.

P. P.J. Harvey

The first lady of rock n’ roll. Has an unparalleled ability to shift genres. ‘Stories From The City…’ was straight up rock while ‘White Chalk’ was sparse, ambient indie. Both were brilliant.
Or

Probot: Remember when Dave Grohl made a metal album? Better than the Foos.

Q. Queens of the Stone Age

Hard rock better than anyone has produced before. Ever. Avoid Era Vulgaris though.

R. Radiohead

The best band of this and every decade. If you didn’t like ‘Kid A’ or ‘Amnesiac’ (which were awesome) then you had to like ‘In Rainbows’ or Hail to the Thief’ (which were also awesome).
Or

Raconteurs: Jack White becoming more indie with thanks to Brendon Benson and a few Greenhorns

The Rapture: Alternative dance rock. ‘Echoes’ is a classic.

S. Spoon

Not just because they have the same name as me. They were named Metacritic Band of The Decade. Consistently provided us with top indie-rock over the course of four albums in the decade.
Or

The Strokes: Garage rock band who re-created music in 2001, or so the buzz would have you believe.

System of a Down: American metal with an Armenian influence.

T. TV on the Radio

‘Dear Science,’ is a fantastic indie-rock album. ‘Return to Cookie Mountain’ is a fantastic indie-rock album. Their debut was very good.
Or

Tenacious D: I actually met someone who didn’t know them recently. That was weird.

U. Ungdomskulen

U was tough. It wasn’t as though I was going to pick U2. I stumbled across Ungdomskulen when they played support to Young Knives and was blown away. Their unique sound of Mars Volta meets Steely Dan works well and does, in my opinion, justify their place.

V. Von Bondies

A garage rock band that didn’t make the impact of The Strokes or The Hives but released, in ‘Pawn Shoppe Heart’, an album just as good as either of the two. Best known for the fight between lead singer Jason Stollsteimer and Jack White, which Jack White won.

Vampire Weekend: They give a fuck about an Oxford comma.

W. White Stripes

Bringing the blues back forty years later. Lamentably, now departed.
Or

Wilco: Alt-folk’s finest

Why?: ‘Alopecia’ was one of the greatest albums of the decade. Lyrics are genius, music accompanies it perfectly.

X. The xx

Indie-pop Mercury Prize winners. The only ‘X’ band I could find but still deserve their place.

Y. Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I’m kinda getting tired of describing everyone as an indie rock band, but what can I do? They are. They’re good. Their name begins with Y. That’s why they’re here.
Or

The Young Knives: Quirky Englishmen who write quirky English songs.

Z. The Zutons

While it is true that they did not have much competition in the Z category, ‘Who Killed…’ was a fantastic album and ‘Valerie’ off ‘Tired of Hanging Around’ was a great song until Amy Winehouse got her hands on it

Sporting Theatre

2011-04-11T16:14:00.000+01:00

“I don’t watch reality TV shows,” commented the BBC golf analyst as Rory McIlroy’s woes continued “Sport is all the reality TV I need.”

Dismiss it as ’22 men running around a field chasing a ball’, ‘trying to hit a ball into a hole with a stick’ or whatever, but sports can provide more drama, action and emotion than Hollywood, more spectacle and choreography than Broadway and more reality than any other TV. This weekend in sports showed all of this and more.

It began in earnest in Wolverhampton early Saturday afternoon as Wanderers welcomed Everton in the Premier League’s early kick-off. What could have been the story of the underdog, struggling for survival, overcoming a more lauded opponent instead turned into a capitulation: Everton’s Nazi Germany overcoming Wolves’ France without needing to exceed second gear.

Manchester United followed with a victory at home to Fulham that could have been set to the Imperial March so ruthless and inevitable it seemed. Their Vader-like grip on the Premier League title seems to tightening with each passing week. The Malaysian Grand Prix seemed to mirror this situation as Sebastian Vettel’s victory stroll extended his championship lead to 24 points after only two races.

On Sunday, Arsenal’s fragile, artistic emotions looked set to crack once again in the face of Blackpool, an underdog so much more resilient than Wolves. Arsenal’s season had been on such a high until its recent collapse which saw them expelled from three competitions in the space of two weeks. Anything less than a win from Blackpool would surely see their hopes silverware extinguished. The men who had everything and threw it away. Perhaps they are involved in some of Brewster’s Millions type deal that will only be revealed come the season’s end. A 3-1 victory ended their slide, though, and possibly averted a full-on psychological collapse. It didn’t get quite Girl, Interrupted… yet.

In the rugby, first came Munster. In Europe this year they’d have had the look of Lethal Weapon’s Murtagh. Their body language seemed to say: “We’re getting to old for this sh*t!” But one Saturday, perhaps, they turned a corner. They looked every inch the veteran giving it everything they’ve got for one last triumphant moment.

Leinster’s victory over Leicester which followed was a blockbuster. It had it all: blood (as Brian O’Driscoll gushed from the nose), sweat (from all concerned, including the fans in the 20+ degree sunshine) and even nudity (when a Leicester forward nearly lost his shorts in a tackle. What we were left with was only a brief flash of his rear end). Chase scenes were interspersed with collision after collision. Just throw in some explosions and some robot testicles and you had a Michael Bay feature. And then there was the moment of beauty. How fitting was it that Isa Nacewa's dance through several of his opponents’ challenges before his graceful stretch for the line proved the game-clincher? Black Swan, anyone?

And then we came to the golf. It’s the tale of Icarus and the tale of Cinderella, although the clothing item in question here is a green jacket as opposed to a glass slipper. Rory McIlroy, who for three days exuded poise, confidence and control, led the Masters with nine holes to play.

This was, however, too close to the sun for his wax wings. His downfall was as heart-breaking as it was spectacular. As his drive on the 13^th (which followed a four-putt from birdie range on the previous hole!) splashed down in the creek he placed his head in his hands to hide his tears from the eyes of the world. Coverage mercifully focused elsewhere for the remainder of the tournament. He’ll be back and, next time, his wings will be of sterner stuff.

The lead subsequently changed hands more often than can be noted here. Indeed, every populated continent held the lead, or joint lead, at some point on Sunday. Birdies, bogeys and eagles seemed to be par for the course. Tiger Woods even had his own put to take the lead on his own. What sort of film would that make? But, ultimately, one man stood above the rest.

Charl Schwartzel’s Cinderella story will hopefully live longer in the memory than the horror variety of Rory’s. The South African turned up to Augusta reasonably unheralded despite six European Tour wins and a world ranking of 29^th. Yet he maintained good form all week and when the time came to strike a blistering four consecutive birdies took him to victory by two shots.

That is the drama of sports. Long may it continue.

Seán Noone

Long Balls and Irish Men

2011-03-29T13:43:00.000+01:00

After the near-calamity that was Saturday’s victory over Macedonia, Ireland line out against Uruguay tonight. While most critics think the International Friendly should be sent the same way as the dinosaurs, over the last few years, they have proved important outings for the boys in green.

It will give Giovanni Trapattoni another chance to look at some of the squad’s fringe, and up-and-coming players. He is, as I’m sure most of you had deduced by this stage, a man who won’t send a player out into the competitive fray unless they’ve been scrutinised in several team assemblies or friendly matches. It will give the likes of Darren O’Dea – who was very impressive against Macedonia -, Ciaran Clarke and James McCarthy further chances to shine and, perhaps, push for a starting place when we travel to Skopje in June for the return Macedonia fixture.

It will also let these players get used to the Irish style of play: the, ahem, long-ball game. It’s a system for which Trapattoni has been widely criticised, but is one no different from those offered by Irish managers for the last 25 years.

It was a style in which Jack Charlton – whose first game as Irish manager was 25 years ago last Saturday – put his faith. Packie Bonner’s grimace before he sends another missile up towards Niall Quinn or Tony Cascarino is, for me, an enduring memory of the World Cup in 1990. While it was derided at the time – we had a team full of captains and cup-winners after all – it still got us to a World Cup quarter final.

While Mick McCarthy tried a more scientific approach his football, he by no means broke the agricultural mould. Niall Quinn would often be thrown on for the last twenty minutes to unsettle the defence grown used to defending on the ground. Wasn’t that exactly where our equaliser against Germany and our second penalty against Spain came from in the Far East in 2002? But it was ‘Big Mick’ and he got results so, like ‘Big Jack’ before him, we forgave him.

The tenures of Brian Kerr and Steve Staunton proved such disappointments that no one paid particular attention to the style of football played. We were more concerned that we were no longer winning football matches. The ‘Nightmare of the Play-Offs’ would have been a glorious dream in those few years.

Then came Trapattoni with his mantra of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ or perhaps more ‘If it wasn’t broke, why did you try to fix it?’. Kevin Doyle became a target man and surely we were only a major finals away from the christening of ‘Big Trap’. You may even like to believe we were one hand ball away from the World Cup (where in reality, we were ten minutes away from penalties and severely under the kosh). It is, perhaps, ironic that the second leg against France was the best example of football Ireland had played in the whole campaign.

The new campaign start and those of you looking for a change have been severely disappointed. The midfield is being bypassed and we have to compete for flick-ons for possession. Balls are knocked wide to be ‘flung’ into the box.

In fairness, though, who have we got who is going to get on the ball and pass it? Glenn Whelan is a rotation player at Stoke (Stoke!), Darron Gibson’s greatest attribute is an ability to kick the ball hard and our most creative, trusted, centre midfielder is the injured, Blackburn reserve Keith Andrews. The other options Paul Green (who plies his trade in the lower reaches of The Championship), Keith Fahey (who doesn’t played centre midfield for his club), Andy Reid and Stephen Ireland.

As we face Uruguay tonight, though, James McCarthy gets his chance to show his wares. Will the skilful Glaswegian be able get on the ball and dictate the pace of the game? Will he be Xavi-like with his metronomic passing? Will Ireland be reborn as proponents of the beautiful ‘tiki-taka’ game, cutting a swathe trough the South Americans? Perhaps. But by the time Skopje comes around, Kevin Doyle will expected to get the flick-ons and the ball will be pumped into the box at any given opportunity.

It may as well be 1986 all over again. Only, this time, there’s no Grimace.

Seán Noone

Nerd

2011-03-23T19:13:00.001Z

For this piece on nerdliness, I have actually hidden a few particularly nerdy references. I shan’t apologise for these. I never apologise. I’m sorry; but that’s just the way I am.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a nerd. This may come as a shock to many of you, I know. I have many jock-like qualities, but, ultimately, I fall on the nerd side of the divide.

I also know many of you may be nerds too. Some of you know that there’s no shame in it and are willing to embrace it:

Others, though, may be closet nerds. By ‘closet nerd’ I don’t refer to someone who gets nerdy about closets. If you are such a person, please get professional help. You may be a nerd and be ashamed of it and don’t want to admit it to your friends. You may wish to express it to your friends but they haven’t been on the chat room in ages. You may have only discovered you’re a nerd and are yet to embrace it. You may always have been a nerd but have never realised (Someday, the sound of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ will beckon you to a meeting of other unknowing nerds).

Nerds aren't the stereotypes television may have you believe. They do not always snort when they laugh. They are not all either lactose intolerant or asthmatic. They do not push up their glasses before they start to talk (There was a funny incident where a teacher friend of mine went to push up her glasses before she said something only to realise she was wearing her contacts. Needless to say, I lambasted her for it). Many nerds even have good vision. Nerds do not, necessarily, live vicariously through Warcraft or Second Life (if that’s still going).

Many nerds aren’t big into computers. I, for one, wouldn’t know the difference between php and html or ip and http. They will know that Chrome is better than Internet Explorer and will be able to appreciate, if not necessarily love, Opera. They will more likely have an Android than an iPhone. They will be flummoxed my iTunes (“If I press sync, it’ll delete everything on the iPod that’s not on the computer? WTFuck?” “How do I get the songs from the iPod back to the computer?”). They will be suspicious of Microsoft but will see Google as gods. For further, more in-depth, knowledge – such as programming or the use of Linux – please refer to “computer nerd”, a subspecies of the nerd genus.

I fit into many of the other subspecies of nerd (sports nerd, film nerd, sports nerd etc.) but I shall get to those at some later stage. My nerdliness also exists on a more general level. I have books like

Books by Stephen Hawking and ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ by Bill Bryson have also been on my reading list for no reason other than they interest me: i.e. I’m a nerd. In school, maths and physics were my favourite subjects. Facts and formulae (I actually just tested Word to see if it would redline formulas. It didn’t. But I’m a nerd for checking) always had a more profound effect on me than any suicidal, lesbian poet.

I have been known to trawl through Wikipedia for hours for no particular reason other than to hoover up as many facts and figures as possible. I could start with swine flu (H1N1 to be nerdishly pedantic) and find myself reading about the exile of Queen Ann-Marie of Greece twenty minutes later. I could normally relay some information about all the topics I cross in between too. All because of my nerdish need for more input. Johnny 5 ain’t got nothing on me! (It also comes in handy at quizzes)

Even outside my data reconnaissance missions, my methods of entertainment tend towards those that feed my nerd side. The books I read are mostly biographies (especially the auto kind) because they contain actual incidents that really happened. Facts and history over prose and intrigue. When fiction enters the fray, it’s more likely to be about a Swedish computer hacker or towel carrying space-travellers than a stream-of-consciousness story of a man walking from Sandycove to Dublin City. I’ll read the classics, but only if you throw zombies or sea monsters into them.

My DVD collection too tells a similar tale. While, as stated above, my passion for films is probable sufficient to be called a nerdly obsession, there is perhaps a superseding tendency towards sci-fi. Every Star Wars, a few Star Trek, three Alien, all Terminators, 2001 and Moon to name but a few (I would even start on comic book movies or how Michael Bay ruined Transformers). TV boxsets (or downloaded series) include Battlestar Galactica and Firefly. Even among the comedy boxsets, nerdy humour exists; Spaced having pride of place.

I’ll say it once and I’ll say it loud: “I’m a nerd and I’m proud”.

Anyway, I’m off to try and find some of these:

Seán Noone

Premier League Run-In

2011-03-22T15:14:00.000Z

As the Premier League (surely it’s a sad indictment of modern football that that name is, in fact, accurate) reaches its final couple of months, it breaks for two weeks for the sectarian sideshow of international football. It is perhaps as good a time as any to take stock of how the league is shaping up.

Three teams are in with a chance of winning the league. A further two will battle it out for the fourth Champions League qualifying place. Liverpool, in sixth, are desperately trying to claim fifth and a Europa League spot (shit one, Liverpool fans) and everyone else is in a relegation battle. That's about it. Feel free to read on though if you wish...

It’s looking increasingly likely that Manchester United will limp over the finishing line to claim a record 19^th title. The do, however, look as vicious as the three legged, asthmatic dog lumbering through the smog-laden LA streets in 40+ degree summer heat rather than the cheetah of old; picking off the injured gazelles that were their premier league rivals. Most of their points this season are more a case of luck over judgement. Their place atop the heap seems down to the ineptitude of others rather than their own grace.

“The problem with Arsenal is they always try and walk it in” as Roy Trenneman so aptly put it in The IT Crowd. It is, among many others. They also lack leaders , are weak psychologically, rely too much on Robin van Persie for goals, are prone to lapses in concentration at the back, are inconsistent, have a long injury list filled with top player and, last but not least, Manuel Almunia. The dislocated shoulder suffered by Johan Djourou last week bears striking similarities to injuries to Eduardo Da Silva and Aaron Ramsey in previous seasons: injuries which crippled their confidence leading to their eventual slips down the table.

Chelsea appeared to be cutting a swathe through all-comers at the start of the league campaign, only for their forgetting of how to play football (around the time Ray Wilkins got the sack) applying the brakes to their league procession. Their form has picked up considerably and they will continue to shout and scream for the title until their voices are drowned out by the fat lady. Nine points may be a bridge too far for them though.

Manchester City forget to attack too often to challenge for the title. (I always thought mercenaries were brought in as an attacking force. Perhaps I’m wrong. Bahrain would likely disagree with at the moment anyhow.) Tottenham Hotspurs, on the other hand, often lack a killer instinct to accompany their attractive football. One or the other should pick up the fourth spot for the final Champions League.

Should they both bow to a period of incompetence hitherto unprecedented, they may just open the door for Liverpool to sneak in. It is a flight of fancy, however, to believe Liverpool’s recent form will continue until the season’s end. They’ll likely settle for sixth without any European football for next season. At least that’s better than having to play in the Europa League, at least according to Arjen Robben. "That is the worst that can happen. I think it is better if you don't play in it at all” he said of the competition.

After that, Everton and Bolton seem to have too many points to be dragged into a relegation scrap. No one else is more than six points off the relegation zone. No one is too good to down. Aston Villa have an immensely talented group of players but, with Gerard Houlier in charge, anything from the sublime to the ridiculous is eminently possible. They’ve taken four points off Chelsea this season and United needed two very late goals to scrape a draw earlier in the season. They have, however, only taken one point from the last eighteen available.

Whoever stays up, they are going to need closer to 50 points than the ‘magical’ 40 which would normally see them safe. Nothing else is certain. Fingers will be crossed, prayers will be said but, when the dice are rolled at the end of the season, any three of the twelve numbers can come up. For them, it now a case of (to borrow a song title from …And So I Watch You From Afar) “Clench fists, grit teeth… go!”

Seán Noone

Twitter and the like

2011-03-18T14:59:00.000Z

I am a twitterer, a tweeter, a member of the twitterati. Whatever grandiose title you wish to put on it, I use Twitter.

There are many different uses and ways to use Twitter. There are those who follow thousands, those who follow plenty and those who follow few. Kanye West follows no man. Barack Obama follows seven hundred thousand! (I don’t see how he finds time to president after scrolling through his timeline updates.)

Many use it to make and maintain friendships clearly having never heard of AHI (actual human interaction, not to be confused with Animal Health Institute), the hottest site on the internet. Here, you can meet people with whom you share common interests, have a drink, a chat and a laugh. There are many entertaining and interest events you can partake in, both free and paid. You can also physically touch people if you so wish, and have their permission (I prefer express written permission to avoid any potential legal disagreements). Wait, I may have confused the Internet with the Not-Internet again. Let me consult my dictionary… (*looks up 'internet'*, *looks up 'real life')… Yes, I have. Please replace the last few sentences with the word Facebook.

Twitter is also good for following your favourite celebrity. If you want to know what Ashton Kutcher sees while he’s driving, what Kim Kardashian (can someone please explain who she is to me again!) is thinking about having for lunch or what Naomi Campbell is about to throw at her PA, Twitter is great. If you go by Twitter, the opinions of Lady Gaga, who has over 8,000,000 followers, are the single most important on the planet. Charlie Sheen (née Estevez) accumulated 1,000,000 followers in 24 hours. All clearly looking for his key to ‘winning’. And isn’t it good to be reminded regularly how much of a genius Kanye West is? Follow him on Twitter and you won’t forget. It gives you a false sense of closeness with your chosen celebrity too. You feel as though they tweet for an audience of one, but no matter how often you reply to their tweets you’ll never get an @lonelyfollower back from them (I did get a reply from a tweet I sent to Daire O’Briain, but I’m different).

Twitter is a great way to get news. BBC and RTE (and hundreds of other news outlets) will have links to breaking news on Twitter quicker than you can refresh their main sites. News of the Japan earthquake and tsunami broke on Twitter before Sky News even thought of the same car floating away for 24 hours straight. More important news, too, like music and sport get earlier releases on Twitter (I just found out that Perfume Genius is playing Dublin in May).

Tweeting is the beautiful other side to Twitter (it’s like the side of a coin with the face on it if you have a good-looking monarch). It gives a voice to the voiceless. It gives those whose opinions court controversy free reign to be heard without fear (physical) retribution. It gives idiots the time of day. A microcosm of the internet in general, I suppose.

I like it because I can feel free to talk the type of inane shite that would lose me friends in real life. The other day I spent about three hours tweeting about bees, for no reason other than I could. I may have lost a follower or two but you’re (let me consult my dictionary again) not in real life so you don’t count. If I want to quote The Simpsons, talk about cricket or, indeed, make up things about bees, who’s to stop me? And, you know, it’s moderately saner than talking to yourself.

Recently, I have come up with a fantastic new use for Twitter. It combines whole range of new people to talk to, a topic to discuss with them and one of my favourite pastimes (being right). Basically, it works as follows:

- I do a search of Twitter for tweets that are inaccurate.

- Reply to the tweeter, correcting their mistake/mistakes.

- Call them a tool.

This can be very entertaining, especially if are particularly pedantic and decide to correct someone’s spelling or grammar mistakes. This practice reached its height very recently with lots of people (let’s face it, they are Americans) referring to feast of our patron saint, the most-holy St. Patrick, as St. Patty’s or just (blasphemously) Patty’s Day. Given my duty to my own enjoyment, my sense of national identity and the English language, my only course was to reply “It's Paddy, not Patty you tool!” to all and sundry being incorrect.

Oh how I laughed… in my room… on my own.

Seán Noone

www.twitter.com/spooneman.

P.S. If you don’t have a smart phone there was probably no reason to read this. It’s not nearly as useful. Just saying.

White Men Can't Sprint

2011-03-16T17:23:00.002Z

Last week Christophe Lemaitre took a bronze in the 60m sprint in the European Indoor Championships. Who cares? No one cares about indoor. No one cares about European championships, especially in sprinting. No one cares about bronze medallists. So why should you care about Christophe Lemaitre?

Firstly, this medal is one to add to his three sprint gold from last year’s outdoor European Championships, winning the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay. Secondly, he’s just 20 years old. As a sprinter you tend not to hit your peak until the 26-30 age group (seems Usain Bolt, at 24, might still have some improving to do), so he a few years of physical development until then. Thirdly, he’s… how do I put this…white.

It’s not as though he was always destined to be a top class sprinter (other than the fact that he runs top class times). He wasn’t raised on a staple TV diet of athletics championships. He is on the record saying he didn’t know who Marie-José Pérec was ‘about 5 or 6 years ago’. “Well” you say, “I don’t know who Marie-José Pérec is now!” Yeas, but you’re not French. She is a French three-time Olympic gold medallist. She was the golden girl of French athletics. Their Sonia! (While Sonia O’Sullivan was our athletics golden girl, she has a total return of one Olympic medal, silver in 2000.)

But now, at 20, he’s France’s golden boy. Their …eh… John Treacy (the only Irish athletic medal winner in the last fifty years). And how French he is. He’s got a mop of light brown hair, occasional patches of light, fluffy facial hair and a permanently disinterested expression on his face. He could only look more French if he wore a beret and string of onions around his neck. He looks just like the type of coq who pretends not to speak English because you’re in his country and you don’t speak French.

He is running world-class times as a twenty year old. Last summer he set a new French 100m record of 9.97 seconds. This, remarkably, made him the first white person to break the magical ten second barrier. In fact, he is only the second person of non-west African descent to do so (the first was Australian Patrick Johnson, whose mother is an Indigenous Australian and his father is Irish). And it only took forty two years.

But sprinting has moved on in the last forty two years. Running sub-10 is no longer a guaranteed medal. People you've never heard of like Nesta Carter and Yohan Blake are running sub-9.90 to no fanfare. In fact, had Lemaitre run his personal best in the last Olympic or World Championship final, the highest he would have finished would have been sixth. Given the standard of sprinting these days, it’s not difficult to envisage needing to run a sub-ten (perhaps even a 9.90) to qualify for this year’s World Championship, or next year’s Olympic, final.

Lemaitre, if he wants to be a world renowned sprinter, has to find nearly a quarter of a second. He needs to find nearly half a second to break the world record. Can this gap be bridged? It’s hard to say. Certainly, he could benefit from an improvement in technique. Currently, he looks like a man in a suit chasing after the bus. He’s the accountant dancing to NWA. He’s socks with sandals. There’s just no style to him. Training and coaching will bring this on over the next few years, but who’s to say if it will help him enough.

He’ll never run like Usain Bolt. Bolt runs as though it is the only thing he was put on this earth to do and, in fairness, who can doubt that he was? As long as Bolt keeps trying, he’ll keep winning. And those of west-African descent are going to continue to dominate the sport. It’s just nice to see some ethnic diversity in the sport.

Just too bad he’s French!

Seán Noone

Giving Up Alternative Music

2011-03-11T15:24:00.000Z

I have an admission to make: I am horribly out of the loop when it comes to modern music.

This actually came as a shock to me. I thought I was at the cutting edge. I thought it was only the odd band or two who managed to sneak under my radar. The fact that I spend hours each week seeking out new bands, new styles, new tracks, the gigs I attend several times a month, the blogs and reviews I read (as I write this I am streaming the new album from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart for example): they all count for nought. I am wrong. I have bad taste.

The realisation came less than a week ago in a popular Dublin night spot. Track after track sent people wild and kept the dance floor heaving. Happy, drunken people bopping their sexy little asses off. Not I. My sexy little ass remained un-bopped for most of the night. I wasn’t quite arms-folded, stern frown, puritan but I was not going to dance to the raw sewage being pumped through the speakers.

Ice Cube using vile lyrics like “You can do it put your ass into it” and Usher shouting “Yeah” for four minutes seems to fill the masses with rhapsodising joy. Kings of Leon’s mutinous “Sex on Fire” and some Oasis track from the mid-90s (to which I actually have no objection) forms the ‘rock set’ of the night. The brilliant “Pass Out” by Tinie Tempah was the only song of real quality I heard in my few hours of attendance.

I returned home bemoaning the majority of my generation. How do people find entertainment in such rancid tripe? Why do they jump on the bandwagon of bands like Kings of Leon just as their creative output takes a nosedive? Surely others realise that nearly all R&B is utter pig swill? The odd track by Britney, Gaga and one or two others occasionally rise above the dross and Adele’s current offering ‘Rolling in the Deep’ is a fantastic song but on the whole modern popular music tends to make me violent.

But as the new day dawned and my head cleared, I realised that I was the misguided one. Surely I had to be. All the facts told me so.

More people believed Shakira’s hips (14m copies sold), had a feeling (Black Eyed Peas, 13.2m) or woke in morning feeling like P. Diddy (Ke$ha 12.8m) than ever wanted to hold your hand (12m), the most keenly felt of any Beatles sentiments. Dylan, Zeppelin, The Stones, Bowie, U2 and an unlimited number of other top bands haven’t even come close to these totals. The Script can sell out two days in Lansdowne Road where Queens of The Stone Age get one night in The Olympia. Chris Brown (who I still only know as a Rihanna beater) fills The Point where Glasser only barely fills Crawdaddy.

So as the old adage states: if you can’t beat them, join them. And I can’t, so I will.

Today, I am turning over a new leaf. Radio will provide me with all the new music I need. iTunes chart will tell me what to listen too. I am removing Phantom and Nova from my radio presets to be replaced by Spin and FM104. Nialler9 and Pitchfork are being de-bookmarked to be replaced by Smash Hits. My CD collection will no longer include Animal Collective and the Antlers; it’ll be Akon and Avril Lavigne. Black Keys, Black Kids and Black Lips are out. Black Eyed Peas are in. I could go on. I might even get an iPod to listen to them on.

Alternative music is for saps anyway. The whole ‘We write and play our own music’ gimmick is getting tiresome. And all the effort involved just seems like a waste of time. Playing support to a bunch of has-beens or never-will-bes to handful of disinterested strangers doesn’t seem worth it. You’re much better off being hot and/or related to someone famous and have ugly nobodies write bland songs for you. That’s where the money is. It’s what the people love. It’s, now, my type of music.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart? I don’t feel them anymore.

Seán Noone

The Joy of Human Suffering

2011-03-09T11:15:00.000Z

Do you ever find humour or joy in the suffering of others?
While it is something you may not wish to admit to, please watch the below and try to argue it's not hilarious.
Some of you may have seen this before, but I shall not apologies in posting it again.

I know the participant in these events (is victim a better word). Whether that makes it better or worse to post it I shall leave to your own opinions.

Seán Noone

P.S. Sorry John

Cricket. No, Really!

2011-03-03T15:00:00.000Z

Sorry it's been nearly two weeks since my last post but I have been busy on other ventures. Expect something about those other ventures here presently. First, read about cricket.

So we beat England at the World Cup and everyone’s delighted and, to quote Lucas Lee, “Why wouldn’t you be?” It was a momentous day in Irish cricket. Rain denied us our chance in the Twenty20 last June but yesterday we did it. So what does that mean?

Test cricket is an awful sport. It’s long, repetitive and boring. Advocates may tell you it’s a gentleman’s game, full of tactics played at a strategic pace. They’re wrong. It’s long, repetitive and boring. Awful.

Two teams come out wearing white woollen pull-overs wearing more padding than a teenage disco and chase an oversized ball gag around a field for five days, stopping occasionally for tea or dinner. And what kind of beastly sport is played in the rain? Not cricket, of course. It’ll be delayed if it gets a bit too overcast. But, not to worry, it’ll end up in a draw after the five days anyway.

It doesn’t sound like a sport to me either. If any sport stretches on beyond two hours there better be a hearty supply of beer and chicken wings. Even at that, once you go beyond four hours of so, you’re too drunk to remember there’s a sport in progress. The only challenge you’re ready to face is the on-going rivalry between you versus the floor. That, or your stomach versus its contents. ("When you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get" - Homer Simpson) After five days we might as well bypass the ER and make a b-line to the morgue.

It’s not a sport the Irish people have been particularly fond of in the last 150 or so years (but was apparently rather popular before that!). The necessity for it not to rain is a major contributing factor as it the fact that after a few hours in the sun, most Irish people succumb to a pile of ash. And don’t we have a perfectly good sport of our own with sticks and a spherical piece of leather? After all, cricket’s name in Irish, iomáin gallda, means foreign hurling.

One day cricket is a different animal to its test equivalent, though still a rather boring animal. One day is the turtle to test cricket’s snail. The sloth to test’s dead gorilla. The test cricket enthusiast to test’s man in a coma. They play a rather brief eight hours, wear colours and, generally, have a winner. You know what they say about shortening attention spans…

So the question comes: should we even care that we beat England? It’s a sport that we don’t play (in terms of participation numbers, cricket would struggle to reach the top 10 sports in Ireland), we don’t understand and we don’t follow. We only know England won The Ashes because they won’t shut up about it (Do you even know what The Ashes is?). It’s never going to be in the forefront of Irish minds. It will only ever command a passing interest (Remember the hype four years ago when we beat Pakistan? And then how quickly it faded?). So why do we all jump on the bandwagon. And is ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ the tantamount to not giving a toss?

No, I don’t believe it is.

We beat England. That’s important. From a nationalistic point of view, there’s nothing like getting one over your past rulers. As a proud Irishman, I would be delighted if Ireland beat England at anything football to tiddlywinks. I’m happy when Ireland beat anyone, but the fact that it’s England is all the sweeter (By the way, the fact that a Glaswegian team beat another Glaswegian team last night, wouldn’t give me a sense of national pride). From Stuttgart in 1988 – John Mooney referred to his winning boundary as his “’Ray Houghton Moment” – to Croke Park in 2005, those moments we beat England are remembered more than any others.

We beat England. That’s important. From a sporting point of view, it’s David defeating Goliath. England are good. They are current Ashes and ICC World Twenty20 (Twenty20 is another, yet faster version of the sport in which each team bats for 20 overs, 120 balls) holders. We broke records doing it. No one had ever won a match at the World Cup chasing 327 runs; it is the highest successful chase in history. Kevin O’Brien added his own record of fastest ever 100 in a world cup improving the on the previous best strike rate of 150 (1.5 runs per ball) to 200 (two runs every ball). And he failed to score on 21 of those balls! We are a team semi-pros and amateurs with the odd full-time professional thrown in to add some respectability. We don’t have a Kevin Pietersen (cricket’s David Beckham) to strike centuries for us.

We beat England. That’s important. We can progress to the quarter finals. After a disappointing run chase against Bangladesh (we got just over half the runs we did against England) the England victory puts us in decent position in the group. We should beat The Netherlands and should require one victory from South Africa, West Indies & India to progress. We may not just be a flash in the pan.

Next up come India on Sunday. While the game starts at 9am, you shouldn’t need to tune in until at least 1pm to catch the interesting bit.

Just don’t jump off the bandwagon again before it gets into gear.

Seán Noone

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

2011-02-18T14:29:00.000Z

Radiohead pulled another fast one on us by releasing the highly anticipated (by me, since it was announced on Monday) new album, King of Limbs, a day early. Today.

The big question people may have been asking this week is ‘what is going to be different’? When I asked a friend this week if he was excited about the new album, his response was “Nah, I have enough Radiohead”. He wasn’t dismissing their previous work, merely stating that he couldn’t envisage anything he hadn’t seen before. There is a point in that. Personally, between LPs, EPs, B-sides and live recordings, I have 18 releases, 210 tracks, 13.6 hours of music (I’m an obsessive, I get it). And that’s before I throw King of Limbs onto the pile. Oh, and Thom Yorke’s solo album, if you want to count that.

So what territory do they cover on King of Limbs that they haven’t covered in the last eighteen years? What is there to make you buy this album? Well, on first listen, not a lot. There is not event of a Karma Police. There is no frenzied majestic epic of Paranoid Android. There is no slowly revealing beauty of Pyramid Song. There is nothing to sing along to the way you may have with The Bends. There is nothing particularly radio-friendly. We’re right back in Kid A/Amnesiac without it being Kid A or Amnesiac.

But this is an album, and Radiohead have always been an ‘album band’, as much as I loathe the term. And, as an album, it certainly stands up. Especially after multiple listens (I’ve been playing it non-stop since I got it. On play number four as I write this)

The first thing you’ll notice is the beats. Drums and drum machines dominate the first half of the album, nowhere more so than on the opener Bloom. Drums compete with drums in a way that is both out of the ordinary and fitting.

Good Morning Mr Magpie comes across like Harrowdown Hill (from Eraser by Thom Yorke) meets Jigsaw Falling into Place (In Rainbow) with Thom spitting out lyrics like you’ve never heard him before; “You got some nerve, coming here!.” Little by Little almost sounds like Radiohead are trying their own version of Tomorrow Never Knows (by The Beatles) with salacious undertones. Feral sounds almost dubstep where lyrics are abandoned all but completely.

Drums are moved further back (though very much still on radar) from then on as Lotus Flower kicks into gear. It’s the closest they come to a single. Check it out here:

Codex is a slow piano ballad in the style of Videotape (In Rainbows) or You and Whose Army (Amnesiac). It is slow yet beautiful and moving, and would be my undoubted standout on the album. Give up the Ghost has a Bon Iver feel with just acoustic guitar on repeat and vocals layered to produce a choir-like backing to the main lyrics. Closer Separator starts slowly but builds all the way to the end, finished up with layer upon layer to produce the most uplifting point on the album.

This is not an album that will convince anyone on the virtues or Radiohead; if you’re not a fan already, this won’t change your mind (If you’re not a fan, go out and buy OK Computer and play it on repeat until you realise it’s the best thing ever set to CD!). It’s an album for fans of Kid A and Amnesiac. It’s another string to the bow of an almost over-stringed bow. It’s another example of what makes Radiohead Radiohead. It’s another fine, innovative, different album to sit in their repertoire.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I could be better.

3.5/5

Seán Noone

Footloose vs. Football

2011-02-17T14:11:00.000Z

The tale of a night of divided loyalties.

On Wednesday night, 16^th February, I had tickets to see my friend performing in a local production of Footloose. Unknown to me at the time of booking these tickets, it was the same evening that Arsenal were playing Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions’ League last sixteen. As a football purest, I could not miss this game, but had no scope tom rearrange the tickets I had purchased. Sky+ set, to the theatre I began, vowing to avoid all news game until I arrived home to watch it as live.

With the crowds almost at capacity, friends, family and fans, both casual and enthusiastic, wait with bated breath as those familiar notes fill the arenas as the main players in both shows make their entrance. In fairness, I believe it would be trite of me to compare Georg Frideric Handel's "Zadok the Priest” (A.K.A. Champions’ League Theme Tune to Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose, but both herald the arrival of the respective shows.

One, the greatest show on earth, between two of the greatest proponents of the beautiful game in recent times. The other, a local community musical production. One, with enough twists and turns, up and downs, to make a roller-coaster look like a desert highway. The other, as formulaic as a…a…a Broadway musical!

It’s an interesting juxtaposition that a story of a town that has outlawed an artistic expression, dancing as the story goes, coincides with a game that is more likely than any other to revel in it, being the beautiful game in this case. The town with no tolerance for quick feet and freedom of expression certainly wasn’t going to be London.

As Ren set up in his new home, a million miles from home, Barcelona made The Emirates look like the Camp Nou. No other team will take to playing there this year than Barca did. It was as though they, as opposed to the characters in Bomont, were enacting a performance as set to music. The London lawmen, Arsenal, couldn’t stop the out-of-towners dancing, and ultimately taking the lead through David Villa, the way the Bomont authorities had done Ren.

As the interval neared the paths seemed divergent. The home town boys were struggling in London, with the old guard certainly had the better of exchanges in Bomont. Signs were evident, however, of a potential shift. Ren had garnered support among many locals. Arsenal began to show they can fight fire with fire, dancing feet with dancing feet (and a little bit of Alexander Song persistent fouling), art with art. Barcelona lead and remain on top, but Arsenal getting a foothold.

With the interval upon us, I had an almost overpowering urge to check the latest score in the game (a smartphone is a handy old device). I stood steadfast, however, against my temptations. I returned to my seat for the second half blissfully ignorant of football fates.

The dramas recommence with an alternative tone in the air. Ren and Co. get to dance to their hearts' content, albeit out of town, away from the Bomont rules. In London, the locals begin to play the music to which the events will play out.

Two pivotal scenes are on their way in each of the theatres. First, Ren faces the town council as the ball breaks to Clichy deep inside the Barcelona half. Ren puts forward his case, Bible quotations and all, as the ball over the top finds van Persie on the left side of the box. His argument is compelling as is van Persie, audaciously finding the back of the net from the tightest of angles past a helpless Victor Valdes. They aren’t enough, however. The Bomont town council vote to maintain the law as writ. Arsenal know a draw will not be enough to see them through.

The tides truly turn when, in Bomont, Ren has a deep conversation with the reverend (de facto head of the town council) while, in London, Arsenal’s confidence grows. The zenith is arrived at in Bomont as the reverend informs his congregation of his change of heart. Dancing is not the evil that took his son (I probably should explain this further, but I’m not going to) and the senior class may have their prom. It is the moment Samir Nasri cuts the ball back for Arshavin to slam the ball home from 18 yards to seal victory for Arsenal.

In Bomont, victory is achieved.

In London, It’s only the end of Act 1.

It was after half twelve when I got home and put on the game having not heard a word mentioned about it. An excellent match and a pleasant surprise.

Seán Noone

King of Limbs

2011-02-16T13:05:00.001Z

Radiohead

They may annoy you, they may bore you, they may depress you, but unless you’ve given on music post 1992, you’ve heard of them and know that they are one of the biggest bands in the world. And you’ve probably made up your mind as to how you feel about them. I doubt they, or anyone else, would be able to change your mind on that. But in the last few days they have announced the release of their new album, King of Limbs, this Saturday.

Shunning traditional label press releases or the like, the band made a short announcement on its website on Monday and stood back while the likes of Facebook and Twitter spread the news quicker than any traditional media outlet can dream of. The only indications that they even had an album due is that it has been three and a half years since the previous one, In Rainbows.

King of Limbs, like In Rainbows, gets a novel release. Not feeling as generous as before – you could ‘pay what you like’ to download In Rainbows, including £0.00 – the download will cost you £6 from Saturday with the physical release coming in May. Last time out, despite most people having the album digitally already, the physical release shot straight to the top of the charts worldwide.

But what can we expect? I think it’s safe to say that no one knows. Because, while Vice Land have posted a review (the eagle-eyed among you may realise that it’s probably not genuine), nobody has heard it. That’s not to say, however, that we are completely in the dark as to what it will sound like. It will sound like Radiohead, and nothing else.

There will be electronic beats, piano, guitars, drums and Thom Yorke singing. Strings, horns, repeaters and synths are all likely to make an appearance too. Unless they wish to truly re-invert themselves, their lyrics will be open to multitudes or interpretations (most of which will be wrong, I’m sure). It will sound like OK Computer meets Amnesiac, The Bends with a dash of Hail to The Thief, In Rainbows vs. Kid A. It will be good.

It will be a critical and commercial success. Critics will rarely give Radiohead less than four stars in reviews (they rarely deserve less) and their albums always turn up on year end lists. OK Computer (which I’m proud to say is the first album I ever bought) has been named as the best album of all time by organisations as diverse as Pitchfork, Q magazine and Channel 4, while In Rainbows and Kid A walked off with a few end of decade awards each. And, while they don’t sell like Rihanna or Black Eyed Peas, Radiohead are no strangers to the top of the charts.

What I know is that it will be innovative and invigorating. It will be new and exciting. It will find a place in my collection beside their previous efforts (except Pablo Honey, but that was the debut of a band who didn’t know what direction to take). It will be right up with my most oft-played album of the year. It will be in my Top 10 come December. It will be good.

But that’s just me. I’m a fan and I have faith.

Seán Noone

Eurosong 2011

2011-02-14T16:53:00.000Z

Yes, I did write about this. Shut up!

Out he comes looking like Plug from the Bash Street Kids grown up to work in the city.

“Welcome everybody, welcome to the Late Late Show.” With these words, you know you’re wasting your Friday night. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s our Eurosong Special.” OH GOD NO!!

They wheel some old ginger has been to sing a song that proved mildly popular 17 years ago to relive the days before Ireland was the butt of Eurovision jokes and we didn’t have to call upon a puppet turkey to find friends with a satirical entry. Shockingly enough, Europe didn’t appreciate the patronising and we didn’t qualify. Ukraine ’07 wasn’t a patronising precedent, though it came within a whisker, it was ‘Euro-camp’. She sings. It’s followed by a chat. “I remember how great life was before people forgot about my existence” is the essence of her sentiments. “And then I represented us last year”. Really? Huh.

She leaves the arena before security has to be called and he gets on introducing the in-studio panel. The Man with The ‘Tache is first to get called. He has “Eurovision experience” we’re told having been to 13 with RTE. It turns out no one ever noticed this because everyone was watching Terry Wogan, and now Graham Norton, doing the same job for the BBC. At least us Irish continue to have some representation in the Eurovision finals.

Next is an English woman in her fifties who’s greatest achievement is having her skirt ripped off in public in Dublin in 1981. In 2011 we call that an Essex stag party, love. Next we have Ronan Keating’s ex-lover (this is a lie!) who go down on one knee to sing for Ireland a few years back. He looks like he’s been hitting the gym. Either that or the donuts. What follows is a soft-spoken rant about how Lordy, the band who won the Eurovision with metal, changed the game for the worse (“I knew in that moment everything had changed”). He follows up with an eerie threat for returning to perform in the future; a scenario scarier than Hard Rock Hallelujah.

Then comes Mairead Farrell, radio presenter and occasional Panel-ist. Eh, what to say… what to say… I probably would! “We sent a turkey one year” shouts Plug inanely in the middle of someone else’s sentence before going on to introduce a clip of recent winners. I evidently haven’t watched the Eurovision in a while. Who are these people? Then, just before the acts are given their moments, Plug tries his best to confuse a reasonably simple voting procedure: Juries count for 67% of total, public count for 33%. Anyone struggling with that should stay after school for extra maths class.

Talking with Jennifer is an ‘up-tempo, rock-flavoured, pop track’ and will begin the proceedings. While the track drones on I wonder what rock it’s flavoured like. It’s it the type of rock you get at holiday destinations, in which case it would be minty, or the actually type of rock which makes up the earth’s crust. If so, I’d imagine it would be rather salty. After an eternity, it seems, of blandness, “Hey, I miss talking to my friend!”, the bland panel make bland comments.

Up next comes Jedward. Oh, here we go! A brief flick of the camera across to the writer doesn’t inspire any further confidence. A skinny leather tie, one dyed sideburn and eye make-up it’s what I look for in a song writer. Then those rocket-haired twats enter the screen. Urgh! But wait, what’s this. It’s an up-beat electro pop with a pang of Britney (circa Womanizer) or Gaga. And it’s catchy. “Got her lipstick on…” “Collar, collar…”. It’s actually good! Hmmm. The ‘Tache makes some ironic comments that most people fail to grasp, followed by bland, bland and Mairead giggling mindlessly.

Then comes Shine On by Bland, or was it Bling? Whatever, it sounds like a tune composed for a kids television show with lyrics specifically written so as not to make sense. Is that a bit that sounds like Want You Back by the Jackson 5? Yes, but it doesn’t help. The panel: “I hated that song when I heard it before, but live I don’t necessarily want to jam pencils in my ears to make to the pain go away.” That’s your prerogative. Personally, I’m just glad my house is short on stationery.

Send Me An Angel. “I wanted to write something different” says the writer/composer. And he did. A church hymn is very different from anything the Eurovision has seen before. Unfortunately, dear writer/composer, the song is absolute ass. The panel agree, though they use the “not really a Eurovision song” cliché. The gay chap bemoans the lack of an Irish accent in the music. Later he, controversially, goes on to claim the ethnic minorities are the reason for our banking crisis (again a lie!).

Falling is last up. It’s a bit of a power ballad. All it lacks it a smoke and wind machine. And something catchy. It’s just there. And then it’s done. Mairead then goes on a rampage against ‘frilly’, i.e. homosexual, dancers. Controversy is raging. Brian Kennedy again laments the neutral accent in his xenophobic “I suppose this is modern Ireland”.

Suddenly, a startling revelation hits me. Oh no! Oh god no! I’m not even sure if, even days later, I can type this. My favourite song of the night is... is… is… Lipstick! Lipstick? Lipstick. By Jedward!

There are further trips down Eurovision Memory Lane, featuring a number of (mercifully) forgotten faces, while we are constantly reminded that voting lines are open. Then a group of old people sing about opportunity “taking you from behind”! Then their skirts are removed. This is Temple Bar all over again!

And now the juries form around the country. There are six. Plug tries again to confuse us as to the scoring system and we’re off to Waterford. The third Grimes twin tells us that Falling squeezes in ahead of Lipstick in the minds of the southern jury.

Lipstick 10, Falling 12.
Cork: Lipstick 10, Falling 12.
Limerick: Falling 10, Lipstick 12. Ooh, close!
Galway: Lipstick 8, Falling 12. Boos ring around my living room for Galway. I’m watching this on my own by the way.
Sligo: Falling 8, Lipstick 12. Coming to the last jury, Lipstick, on 52, is only 2 points behind Falling. All the other shite has long been relegated to fighting for the minor places.
Dublin: Lipstick 10, Falling 12.

Four points separate the top two before it goes to the public vote. Top rated act will get 36, second will get 30. Public vote winner take all at this stage. I can feel you’re tense while reading this. Don’t worry, we’re all feeling the same way.

Some accountant passes on the envelope to the shorter version of Peter Crouch and the results are seconds away. The audience goes quiet as the three shittest get the shitty points.

“Song five, Falling gets 30 points.” Cheers erupt out of my mouth. 36 points and the victory goes to Jedward.

So here it is, our Eurovision representative:

Seán Noone

The Manchester Derby

2011-02-11T13:56:00.000Z

Please note: What follows is largely parody. Most opinions ventured are for comedic purposes only.

Early Saturday afternoon it will kick off: The Battle of Manchester. It’s the old guard versus the new order, veterans versus mercenaries, ‘Catholic’ versus ‘Protestant’, red versus blue, shit versus shitter. Saturday, more than ever, it will look like the money men versus the pensioners. It’s like Last of the Summer Wine battling it out with Who Want to be a Millionaire in a primetime television slot. It’s the Manchester Derby in Old Trafford.

Given the money spent and depth of talent on either side, both sides have been summarily awful this season. Granted, they occupy two of the top three positions in the league. To say their football leaves something to be desired, however, is to say that a few people are upset with bankers.

United, the Premier League’s dominant side for the last twenty years look Paul McShane-pale compared to their former, well-tanned (say, Peter Andre), selves. They’ve have only lost one league game this season (their last one against the mighty Wolves) but, saving substantial victories over Blackburn and Birmingham, have been truly uninspired. Two-goal leads have been thrown away against West Brom and Everton and countless other points have been thrown away from winning positions. They are merely best of a bad bunch.

Maybe their loss of that petulant, goal-scoring, tosser of a winger 18 months ago is being felt. In his place there in almost a carbon-copy. Nani, however, isn’t as great a goal scorer. Antonio Valencia’s broken ankle has, undoubtedly, hindered his chance to contribute.

Maybe the problem is their age. Carbon-dating is required to accurately measure the ages of their squad and scientific notation required to display it. If you replace van der Sar (a man who’s been a professional footballer since the balls were hand stitched and the boots were shoes with nails sticking out of the bottom), Giggs, Scholes and Ferdinand with Kuszczak, Obertan (Skills: 1. Speed, 2. Eh….), Anderson and Smalling the average age of the team would fall by over four years. Skill and physicality seem, in this case, mutually exclusive.

Ferdinand is out, but the player most likely to provide ‘defensive stability’ in his absence is Jonny Evans. This is the equivalent of dipping your baton in baby oil prior to a relay to enable ‘slicker’ transitions. Evans is a man off whom Jonathan Spector trebled his career goal total (but we all knew he was due a goal glut right?). A player off whom Carlton Cole bagged his first career brace (two goals in the one game for those deficient among you). And they were both in the same match.

City are the big spenders of world football (Is it coincidence that mercenary can be spelt using only letters found in Manchester City?). Most of their investment (with the exception of Robinho, £32m, Adebayor, £24m, Santa Cruz, £17m, and Lescott, £24m) has been reasonably solid. It’s like winning the lotto and investing in gold. The problem is in the approach employed to display this array of precious metal. Roberto Mancini seems content with using this gold to insulate his house and not wearing around his neck. Maybe playing an open attractive brand of football, which his players are most capable of playing, is just to ‘bling’ for the humble Italian.

They have not astonished many this season, either in terms of brilliance or of ineptitude. Their climb to third has been down to a consistency of been marginally above the average. They are the equivalent of dating a 6: there’s nothing to be ashamed of, but not enough to go trying to rub people’s faces in it.

And, as for the potential result; who gives a toss? Let’s just hope it rises marginally above the dross served up by the tow in Eastlands earlier this season. It’s all a distraction until Barcelona kick off later tomorrow evening and show you what football looks like.

Seán Noone

www.twitter.com/spooneman

Ireland vs. Wales

2011-02-08T14:17:00.001Z

There has been a lot of doom and gloom talked about the Irish football team in the last few months. It’s fair to say that the qualifiers to date have been disappointing, with the possible exception of a creditable win in Armenia. There is hope going into the future though, and that future starts today.

We welcome Wales to Lansdowne Road (The Aviva, if you wish to use its commercial name, or the Dublin Arena to use its UEFA-appointment name) tonight for the first game in the Carling Nations’ Cup.

Hopefully this ‘friendly tournament’ (surely an oxymoron) will add an element of bite to the usually turgid non-qualifiers the football-loving of us are charged €50 a pop to watch three or four times a year. While the roster of opponents in recent years has been reasonably impressive (even the most recent guests, Norway, are ranked 11^th in the world), the games have summarily failed to set the pulses racing. We beat Sweden 3-0 in March ’06 (Steve’s Staunton’s 1^st game in charge didn’t prove a portent for what would follow in his reign), but in the intervening five years no other game sticks in the memory for the right reasons.

Hopefully, this tournament will provide a little more excitement. Parochial pride is at stake, after all. It would nice to be able to claim that we’re the best among the ‘Celtic Nations’ come May. It would be nicer still if the Nations’ Cup were to be added to a 6 Nations victory, but, judging by the performance in Stadio Flaminio on Saturday, Ireland’s Call may not be answered this year.

And while there have been the usual raft of late minute pull-outs, the Irish team that is welcoming our neighbours is reasonably strong. Ireland’s greatest ever player*, Shay Given, will win his 110^th cap in goal.

The defence is at, what may prove to be, full strength. Dunne and O’Shea have been there, done that dozens of times for Ireland and Sean St. Ledger has yet to let anyone down in his sixteen appearances in the Green jersey. Then comes debutant Ciaran Clark. He is rated among the top young prospects in the Premier League. While left-back may not prove his ultimate position, he is currently keeping an England World Cup player out of that position for Aston Villa. And that’s before one mentions Darren O’Dea, Stephen Kelly and Marc Wilson who should start on the bench.

Midfield, again, is strong. We may be missing Aiden McGeady, Keith Andrews and Liam Lawrence through injury (or on-going return from injury) and Stephen Ireland and Andy Reid for some altogether more political reasons which I won’t go into here. And let’s just hope Trapattonni’s cack-handed approach to James McCarthy’s late withdrawal doesn’t affect the young star’s international future. The midfield does continue to boast at least three Premier League players (a decision is yet to be made between Paul Green and Darron Gibson) with Seamus Coleman set for his first start. Glenn Whelan and the evergreen (since he left Newcastle anyway) Damien Duff add the experience to the midfield.

Kevin Doyle is as eager as ever to line out for his country and is joined in attack by Jonathan Walters, who is making his first international start. With Premier League starters Robbie Keane and Leon Best also pulling out late, Shane Long will provide the cover (and most likely get a run out) up front.

As the Welsh enter tonight we again look for new talent to shine through or new options to present themselves. But I, for one, would be happy enough if there was something to excite on a dull February evening.

Seán Noone

www.twitter.com/spooneman

*I may have presented a subjective opinion as fact here.

January Sales

2011-02-02T16:56:00.000Z

After a month of not much happening, and with transfer deadline looming, Manic Monday went and shook up the Premier League.

The big spenders, of course, were Chelsea. An outlay of over £70 million was a statement of intent to rest of the Premier League and Champions League. (” We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! “– to quote President Thomas Whitmore). It also seems like manager Carlo Ancelotti has the remainder of this season to stock up the Chelsea trophy cabinet or face being shipped out this summer.

This spending spree goes to show that Chelsea’s youth policy isn’t proving as rewardsome (is that a word?) as anticipated. Players, upon whom expectation was heaped, e.g. Ben Sahar, Stoch, Matic etc, have already been shipped out with the likes of Sturridge, Mancienne, Bruma and Van Aanholt not rising to the Chelsea challenge as yet. Josh McEachran, Conor Clifford and Gael Kakuta may prove the future of Chelsea, but it’s far too soon to be certain.

But the money has, seemingly, been well spent (as well-spent as possible if you’re buying two players for £70 million). Fernando Torres is one of the finest strikers in world football with a genuine Premier League pedigree. His current problems are likely more motivation than ability (feel free to use the oft-quoted “form is temporary…” cliché here if you wish). He did, after all, score two brilliant goals against Chelsea themselves earlier this season.

Chelsea’s main problem is the question of how to accommodate Drogba, Torres and Anelka in the one team, or if one will be happy to sit on the bench and act as an ‘impact’ player. David Luiz is a player Chelsea have been pursuing for most of January and by all accounts is a very talented, ‘progressive’, central defender. A player to fill Ricardo Carvalho’s boots.

Liverpool, it seems, have taken a far bigger risk with their £58 million outlay. While Andy Carroll seems like a good footballer, 14 goals in 41 Premier League and games does not (and I wish to be emphatic in this) justify a £35 million price-tag. He’s big, strong, mobile and reasonably skilful. He’s also unproven, volatile and injured. Unless he turns out to be another Alan Shearer, Liverpool have paid significantly more than his worth. It’s a gamble of the highest order.

Luis Suarez, too, is a gamble. Sure, he has had a few very productive years in Holland, but that’s no guarantee of success. Mateja Kezman ruled the roost in the Eredivisie for four years before flopping in the Premier League. Babel, too, was successful in Holland before failing to ignite in England. At £23 million, he needs to be a Van Persie or Van Nistelrooy to prove value for money. He did perform well in the World Cup but there is an inherent danger in buying players based on international form. Having said that, swapping Torres (especially this season’s Torres), Babel and £2million for Suarez and Carroll, doesn’t look too bad.

Edin Dzeko was a £30 Million capture for Manchester City. He has an excellent scoring record from the German League and has already shown a good level of skill, workrate and finishing ability for City but the jury remains out and will be until they start pushing for trophies with Dzeko as spearhead.

Darren Bent cost Aston Villa £18million. He will continue to score a sufficient number of goals to prove a valuable addition to the Villa squad in their attempt to climb up the league. Jean Makoun and Michael Bradley will add solidity to the midfield and provide some, much needed, proection to the back four.

It was a nice piece of business for Blackburn to loan back a player they sold for £17million 18 months ago. Although Roque Santa Cruz played less than two games before getting injured, again. Jermaine Jones also looks a good player.

Newcastle’s addition of Steven Ireland could prove useful to both parties. They have failed to replace Carroll, but Shola Ameobi, Leon Best, Peter Lovenkrands and Nile Ranger should provide enough goals between them to keep Newcastle safe. Their last minute attempt to sign Charles N’Zogbia was strange as it was more than double what they sold him for two years ago. And that was only because his manager at the time called him Insomnia!

Of the transfers lower down the table, Blackpool’s appear to be the savviest. They have added some class to their midfield, in the form of Andy Reid, and some beef to their attack, in James Beattie. They’ve also taken a punt (knowing Blackpool, a reasonably modest one) on Belarusian attacker Sergei Kornilenko and Southampton midfielder Jason Puncheon. And they held onto Charlie Adam.

Bolton, Fulham, and West Brom will be hoping Daniel Sturridge, Gael Kakuta and Carlos Vela (respectively) seize their chances at first team football to grow their careers to match their reputations. Birmingham, West Ham and Wolves will be hoping their loan signings, David Bentley Robbie Keane and Jamie O’Hara, can reproduce form of previous seasons to save them from the drop. Wigan have signed a young Irish striker, Conor Sammon, who couldn’t get his game for Derry City before moving to Scotland. You have to worry for them.

Of the top two, Manchester United and Arsenal made one signing between them, and he is to be a reserve keeper.

In one of the strangest of the Manic Monday bids Tottenham Hotspurs attempted a last minute offer for Charlie Adam Believed to be in the region of £10million). In fairness, if Luka Modric, Steven Peinaar, Sandro, Van Der Vaart, and Niko Kranjcar get injured, the only have Tom Huddleston, Jermaine Jenas, and Wilson Palacios to play in the centre of midfield. And they just loaned out Jamie O’Hara.

Clubs, and managers alike, will now have to make do with the squads now at their disposal before the summer silly season begins.

Sean Noone

www.twitter.com/spooneman

P.S. Barcelona signed talented Dutch midfielder Ibrahim Afellay for a very reasonable €3million, but it wasn’t the Premier League so no one brought attention to it.

Big in 2011

2011-01-31T16:24:00.000Z

Given it’s transfer deadline day (more on that tomorrow perhaps), what am I gonna talk about?

That’s right, up and coming Irish bands for 2011.

Following on from a brilliant 2010 (see previous post) there are a number Irish bands with album due in the next year. I fully expect these to fill many of the places in my 2011 top ten. The bands, for whom I wait with baited breath, are:

Planet Parade

One can’t deny there’s a strong sound of The Police to Plant Parade, but it’s mostly down to the Sting-like voice of frontman Michael Hopkins. Planet Parade have released two well received EPs already (Ghosts to People in 2009 and Zulu Sound in October last year). They have an alternative, melodic indie sound, with big sounds and catchy hooks.

Catch them on Ceol Ar An Imeall, TG4 Wednesday, Feb 2^nd @ 23.15.

http://breakingtunes.com/planetparade

Owensie

Q: What would happen if Jose Gonzalez started singing songs with emotional, evocative lyrics?

A: Owensie. The Dubliner is better than his Swedish counterpart though.

Debut album due this Friday, Feb 4^th.

Tunes here: http://breakingtunes.com/owensie

Go Panda Go

First caught these guys at Hard Working Class Heroes in 2009, and was blown away. Gone was the up-beat, busking sound which (I think) I remember and in its place was an altogether more indie/rock sound. Still, it’s just as impressive.

Again here: http://breakingtunes.com/gopandago (Can you see where I’m going with this?)

Daithi

What can I say? Talent show veteran (having been on the All-Ireland Talent Show and Sky’s Must Be The Music). Culchie with a fiddle. The most innovative thing in Irish music for years, if not ever. One man, a fiddle, a keyboard and a loop station. Daithi produces walls of electronic sounds with a traditional slant.

http://breakingtunes.com/daithimusic

You can also check out my own video of him from Electric Picnic ’10 (*cough* plug *cough*):

The Minutes

It’s just proper Rock & Roll. No keyboards, no backing tracks, no B.S.. Just hooks, beats and having a good time. They have a nice habit of playing free gigs too, so keep an eye out.

http://breakingtunes.com/theminutes

Check out their award-winning video for Fleetwood here:

Squarehead

Here’s another band who don’t deal in B.S.. They’re another group of Dubliners who are happy with the guitar, bass, drums and vocals tradition, and all the better for it. They take a more garage approach to proceedings and have an early Weezer/early Ash sound

http://breakingtunes.com/squarehead

Funeral Suits

After the straight edges of the previous two bands, we’re back in modern indie country with Funeral Suits. Yeah, that means keyboards, skinny jeans and strange haircuts (“Did someone just call me a dick from the crowd?”). What they do they do brilliantly though. Each time I’ve seen them live (thrice) they had grown noticeably since their previous show.

Playing Whelan’s Wednesday, 16^th Feb for €5. Go see them if you’re not already committed to seeing a musical that night.

http://breakingtunes.com/funeralsuits

Sean Noone

www.twitter.com/spooneman

P.S. If you haven’t quite established it from above, breakingtunes.com is a great place to find new Irish music, with more and more treats added each week.

Rugby Rising

2011-01-26T13:14:00.000Z

Rugby is a big sport in this country. And it’s growing.

Perennially the fourth sport on this island; it had been dismissed (in Dublin at least) as elitist and been victim of homophobic insults from those advocating other codes. It was a sport for private school boys, watched by private school alumni in Dublin 4 after a few Heinos in Kiely’s. This may seem like Ross O’Carroll-Kelly territory, but it’s true.

The country may have sat up once in a while when it was on the verge of doing something spectacular like qualifying for a world cup final (as we nearly did in 1991) and the occasional distraction of the Five Nations Championships, but as an amateur sport rugby was largely under the radar.

Now? Surely, it’s our national winter sport. Over forty-five thousand people (45,000!) paid €100 or more for tickets to see New Zealand last autumn. Nearly forty-five thousand people paid to see a bunch of “lady-boys” take on a few “French mercenaries” in temperatures of minus six degrees a month later.

Rugby holds its own in terms of sports page headlines (“back-page headlines” for those tabloid readers among you). In the headlines of last Monday week’s sports’ pages (17^th January), after what was a weekend of plentiful sports news, one story dominated. “End of the Line” said the Irish Independent, “Munster bid au revoir to an era” said the Irish Times. The red tops probably made some pun.

Colm Keys even had an article in last Friday’s Irish Independent discussing Dublin GAA’s attempts to reaffirm Dublin as the biggest team in Dublin again.

But why has this happened?

It’s certain that during the Celtic Tiger years, rugby became a more essential social event. Those wishing to climb the social ladder saw rugby matches as an opportunity to let people see them doing it. Private school registrations also increased during this time (there is no doubt that rugby still has its base at private school level).

But it’s more than that. Rugby is now a sport we can compete at. We can go out and play the world champions and come within the width of a post of beating them. We can go to the 6 Nations with a chance of winning it. We can go to the World Cup and hope for a semi-final.

The Irish football team in the late 80s/early 90s was somewhat similar (well Republic of Ireland, if you want to follow FIFA’s naming practices. Northern Ireland had their peak in the early to mid-80s). Alright, we only won one match between Euro ’88 and Italia ’90, but our elimination was harsh in both cases. And what happened to Irish football in that period is happening to Irish Rugby now. We’ve even had a player named International Player of the Year by the sport’s governing body, Keith Wood 2001, and another named as Player of the Decade by Rugby World, the games foremost publication, Brian O’Driscoll 2000-2010. That is something no Irish football has achieved.

But there is an added factor which is currently buoying up Irish rugby. One against which football and Gaelic Games (given it’s solely played in this country) cannot compete. Top class rugby is available on our doorstep. You can stroll into Ballsbridge, pay €20 and watch one of Europe’s best rugby teams every second week for half the year. Those travelling to Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow every second week see something similar (well maybe Celtic and Liverpool aren’t providing top class football at the moment, but you get the point.). The cost, however, is considerably higher.

Leinster plays probably the most scintillating and effect brands of rugby in this hemisphere and has been, rightly, installed as favourites for this year’s Heineken Cup. It’s hard to argue that they are justifying their increased popularity.

I, for one, will be in the crowd when Leicester come to town and have my tickets for Cardiff for the 21^st of May already. (I’ll also be in Croke Park this summer for any match Dublin are playing and another half dozen or so more besides, but that’s just me.)

Seán Noone

(Dublin GAA league season tickets available for a very reasonable €45. Check out www.ticketmaster.ie for more deatils.)

Irish Albums 2010

2011-01-20T12:58:00.000Z

So, to start off, why not look back?

2010 was a bumper year for Irish music. That, anyway, is the opinion so often cited by those in the know, it has surely become fact. New artists sprung from out of nowhere almost every week promising for the future but providing for the present. But, even beyond this, many acts have built upon previous success and pushed on to new heights.

So without further ado and all other bull-shit, I have compiled my top 10 Irish Albums* of 2010:

*Well it’s a top 9 with several other suggestions for the elusive 10^th spot.

In Contention for 10th

· Grand Pocket Orchestra – The Ice-Cream: A band I find tough to describe without insulting them. They sound like all the loud, annoying toys any child owns. They sound like annoying hyperactive teenagers. They make music for those with short attention spans. It’s superior pop.

· Villagers – Becoming a Jackal: Mercury Music Prize nominated, Hot Press album of the year, major label signees. Good, but not a patch on The Immediate, Conor O’Brien’s previous band. A shoe-in for The Choice Music Prize

· Halves – It Goes, it Goes (Forever & Ever): Ambient, post rock, instrumental music at its best. Full of light, shade and 40 shades of in-between. Shortlisted for Choice Prize. This song isn't actually from the ablum, but you should get a good impression of their sound:

· Nouveaunoise – Paraphrase Accolade: The sound of coming down, with a few high bits thrown in so you remember what it was like. Similar to Halves (above) but with a more electric feel. New noise indeed.

· O Emperor – Hither Thither: Alt rock, post pop? Touches of The Immediate abound, but have a sound all their own. Great mix of guitar and piano led songs. Can go far from here. Shortlisted for Choice Prize

· Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History: Achieves the Franz Ferdinand mission statement of making “Music for girls to dance to” with great effect. A little more edge would go a long way though. Shortlisted for Choice Prize

· Lafaro, Solar Bears & Jogging: All three released well received albums in 2010. From what I’ve heard from each of them, they sound very promising. The albums have yet to land through the post for me yet though. Please forgive their omission.

9. The Divine Comedy – BANG Goes the Knighthood: As the first song says: “Always a pleasure, never a chore.” A real veteran of the Irish music scene at this stage, Neil Hannon’s continued wit and ear for a tune is undeniable. And long may it endure.

8. Cathy Davey – The Nameless: The sound of walking through a fairy-tale forest. In a good way. Shortlisted for Choice Prize

7. Not Squares – Yeah OK: Irish dance album of the year. Little bit LCD Soundsystem, Little bit The Rapture and probably other bits from loads of assorted others. Always upbeat and feel good.

6. RSAG - Be It Right Or Wrong: A progression from his debut, Organic Sampler, RSAG (Rarely Seen Above Ground), continues to create new and exciting music for “just a drummer”. Blues and mo-town sounds are prevalent here, as is his David Byrne-esque voice.

5. Fight Like Apes – The Body Of Christ and The Legs of Tina Turner: More b-movie music from the dysfunctional Dubliners (and one from Kildare). They come out with lines like “My well-read friends informed me that I was a C^*%”, to fit perfectly over their hooky synth-pop. Not up to the level of their debut, nor indeed their original EP (the most perfect release in this country in the last five year), but unendingly sparky and original. Shortlisted for Choice Prize

4. Adebisi Shank – This is The Second Ablum of a band Called Adebisi Shank: Upbeat, instrumental rock. Angular guitars and powerful drumming fill this album with feel-good charm. They can get funky, like on “(-_-)” and bones has Vampire Weekend sound. A formidable live experience too. Shortlisted for Choice Prize

3. James Vincent McMorrow – Early In The Morning: Ireland’s answer to Bon Iver, with a drop of Jeff Buckley thrown in. Enough said really. Making waves both sides of the Atlantic and rightly so. Shortlisted for Choice Prize

2. Cast of Cheers – Chariot: Came out of nowhere. Unheard of until an announcement offering their debut album, this one, free via their bandcamp blog. Hints of Battles and Death From Above 1979 are there,but this is progressive math-rock all its own. Shortlisted for Choice Prize

1. Melodica Deathship – Doom Your Cities, Doom Your Towns: Another “came out of nowhere”? No. That would suggest they’ve gained some recognition. They haven’t. This is an album that’s hard to describe. It sound like poetry from a ghost filled pirate ship. Sea shanties for the dead and the doomed. Epic, unique, awesome. With added melodica.