Song of the Day -- Warwick Avenue by Duffy

Note that the London post a couple beneath this one is new, but since I started it a while ago it appears below the Premier League post. In that post, I mention Warwick Avenue and the Duffy song of that name, so it seemed like a good time to spotlight the song itself.

Basically, the lyrical content of the song features Duffy arriving at Warwick Avenue to meet with a soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend who has apparently hurt her. She needs to explain to him why she is leaving him. Musically, it fits in with Duffy's retro 60s throwback type sound. The video, which was naturally filmed on location features about 4 minutes of Duffy singing the song while crying in the back of London Black Cab. It's all very chic and minimalist or something.

Anyhow, the song was a big hit for Duffy. It was her third single off of Rockferry after a limited release of the title track and then her smash #1 hit "Mercy." It peaked at #3 and proved that Duffy was no flash in the pan but a genuine new force in UK pop music. It also reached #1 on the UK airplay chart.

It's just a generally pleasant song and has a real belter of a chorus that's just a ton of fun to sing along with. I was humming it to myself the whole time I was near Warwick Avenue.

For reference, here are the song's lyrics:
When I get to Warwick Avenue
Meet me by the entrance of the tube
We can talk things over little time
But promise me you wont stand by the light

When I get to Warwick Avenue
Please draw the past and be true
Don’t say we’re okay
Just because I’m here
You hurt me bad but I wont shed a tear

I’m leaving you for the last time baby
You think you’re loving,
But you don’t love me
And I’ve been confused
Outta my mind lately
You think you’re loving,
But I want to be free, baby
You’ve hurt me.

When I get to Warwick Avenue
We’ll spend an hour but no more than two
Our only chance to speak once more I showed you answers, now here’s the door
When I get to Warwick Avenue I’ll tell you baby that we’re through

Cause I’m leaving you for the last time baby
You think you’re loving,
But you don’t love me
And I’ve been confused
An outta my mind lately
You think you’re loving,
But you don’t love me I want to be free, baby
You’ve hurt me.

All the days spent together I wish for better,
And I didn’t want the train to come
Now it’s departed, I’m broken hearted
Seems like we never started
All those days spent together
When I wished for better
And I didn’t want the train to come. No, no.

You think you’re loving
But you don’t love me I want to be free, baby
You’ve hurt me
You don’t love me I want to be free
Baby you’ve hurt me

Here's a picture of Warwick Avenue tube station:

Here's a picture of some houses on Warwick Avenue:

Finally, here's the video link : Warwick Avenue video

Premier League Quick Hits

So I haven't exactly diligently updated on the Premier League, but if there is anyone actually coming here for there EPL news, they are in the wrong place. I would suggest bbc.co.uk/sport, personally. However, I do have a few quick thoughts regarding the day's action.

• Wigan leads Blackburn 3-0. How quickly will Paul Ince be fired? During the post-game press conference seems likely. I feel bad for the guy being a young manager and all that, but right now he's got Blackburn on the fast track to relegation and they should be much more competitive.
• Hull did it again and somehow managed a 2-0 lead against Liverpool only to have Steven Gerrard pull it back for the league leaders with two goals in 10 minutes. I don't think it's possible to be any more clutch than Gerrard is. He's worth about 10 points a season on his own. I will never forget how he conned his way into a penalty to sneak an undeserved point against Atletico Madrid in Champions' League.
• A typical Arsenal day. Arsenal beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, which is surely impressive. The difference between Arsenal and Chelsea, though, is that Chelsea had 7 first team players injured (including Cech, both Coles, Drogba, and Ballack) and beat Middlesborough 5-0 at the Riverside. Arsenal--more or less healthy except for Theo Walcott and I suppose Tomas Rosicky--blew a 1-0 lead and limped to a 1-1 draw.
• Arsenal, at least in theory, has more than enough quality to handle Boro'. For goodness sake, their Carling Cup side of reserves beat a full strength Wigan club 3-0. Still, they can't get it done consistently enough.
• Liverpool's draw with Hull City bails out the Gunners, though. They remain just 8 points off the pace. However, Aston Villa's 4-2 win over Bolton will drop Arsenal to fifth and they also may cede points to Manchester United who face Spurs later.
• The big winners are guess who? Yep, Chelsea and Manchester United. Last season's top two are poised to each gain two points on Liverpool with wins. Chelsea can go top of the table with a win over West Ham. United can moved to just 4 points behind Liverpool with a game in hand.
• Liverpool's draw means that Arsenal will remain within striking distance, but in all honesty they need a drastic change in form and soon. They were lifeless against Porto and only occasionally showed quality against Boro'. If they can't give a more consistent effort, they'll never be able to challenge the big boys.
• They're still too shaky in defence. It's not just Almunia or Gallas, even though they certainly have their flaws. Clichy, at least as live texts indicate, had a bit of a shocker with some rash challenges. I think Wenger probably prioritizes fluid attacking play so much that he compromises his defence.
• Exhibit A: Kieran Gibbs. Gibbs may make a fine fullback some day, but against Wigan he was constantly getting run up and down the flank. To be fair, he always recovered and never was fully beaten, but it's indicative of what happens when you turn wingers into fullbacks.
• Chelsea gets away with Cole and Bosingwa pushing deep into the wings but they have John Terry and Petr Cech forming the backbone of their defence to bail them out. Gallas and Almunia hardly compare.
• In fairness to Arsenal, Theo Walcott's and Tomas Rosicky's injuries are significant. Right now, they have no true wingers and Walcott's pace and creativity always gives defenders fits. Right now, it seems that all the midfield playmaking must come from Cesc Fabregas and that's too heavy a burden for the young captain.
• I suppose Wenger could get creative and play Adebayor and/or Van Persie in midfield, but that would require quality reserve strikers. Carlos Vela has sublime skill but Wenger clearly doesn't trust him just yet and he has a tendency to be anonymous for stretches. Bentdner, goal against Kiev aside, can't finish a goal for the life of him.
• If Arsenal is to be competitve in the Premier League, or even in Champions' League for that matter, Wenger is going to have to spend some cash in the transfer window. A capable winger and solid centre-back should be at the top of the list.
• Rumour has it that Wenger is interested in Brede Hangleand, Fulham's rock in central defence. Hangeland seems like an odd fit for such a fluid team as Arsenal, given his awkward playing style, but there is no doubting his effectiveness. I suppose the Cottagers would listen to the right offer, but I can't see how Fulham could sell him. Fulham is not a good scoring team so they depend on their rock-solid defence. Hangeland is the key to that. He defuses an absurd amount of aerial threats and frees up Hughes, Pantsil, and Konchesky to focus on dispossessing opposing attackers.
• Speaking of Fulham, they are almost certainly the most tedious team in the league to follow. Today's 0-0 draw with Stoke City makes it three goalless draws in four for Fulham. Certainly, one point at a time is better than none. Ask Paul Ince, Tony Mowbray, or Roy Keane and I'm sure they'll confirm that. Furthermore, all of those goalless draws are on the road, so it's hard to complain too terribly much because at least they're avoiding a relegation battle. Still, it doesn't exactly make thrilling reading on the live texts.
• In all honesty, Aston Villa is one of the top four teams in the league right now both in points and in actuality. With Ashley Young in positively scorching form and Gabriel Agbonlahor not much worse, Villa is legitimately a better team than Arsenal and certainly more consistent. That makes Fulham's back to back draws at Anfield and Villa Park that much more impressive.
• Still, Fulham is going to need to start getting three points from some of their fixtures sooner or later. Particularly they are crying out for some away wins. Their form at Craven Cottage is absolutely solid, but they just don't win enough points away from home.
• It's hard to reconcile the Robbie Keane situation. Keane is saying that he is staying at Anfield. Rafa Benitez insists he will not be sold. But when Liverpool is searching for a late breakthrough against Hull it's not Keane that comes of the bench. El Zhar and Babel instead take the pitch. How damning of an indictment is it that even without Torres available, Benitez apparently rates Keane as no better than his fourth best striking option behind El Zhar, Babel, and Dirk Kuyt playing out of position?
• If Keane isn't going to see the field, there doesn't seem to be any reason why Benitez wouldn't sell him back to Tottenham and Harry Redknapp, who covets him, other than pride.
• One almost wonders if there isn't something more at play, an injury perhaps? Yes, Keane isn't in form, but his form did not appear to be so horrendous as to warrant his current treatment.
• It's nice to read these articles about how not even Manchester United fans like Dimitar Berbatov. Even his own team's supporters realize what a wanker he is.
• Wanker of the Year shortlist: Berbatov, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nicolas Bendtner, William Gallas, Albert Riera. Any others?
• Everton nicked a late goal to beat Manchester City despite having exactly zero fit strikers for the game and being forced to play midfielder Tim Cahill up front. Surely this is cosmic (karmic?) justice for last week's heartbreaking loss to Aston Villa.
• Every time I hear about Tim Cahill, I think of the song "Trippin' On You" by a dance artist named Cahill.
• City fans now officially want Mark Hughes' head and I can hardly blame them. City has a lot of talent but they are letting it go to waste and keep suffering poor results. Surely things will improve after the January transfer window, but is Hughes really the man to spend those millions?
• It's fascinating to wonder who City will get. Among the rumored names are Gianluigi Buffon, John Terry (don't see that happening), Frank Ribery, Lukas Podolski, and David Villa. Just to name a few. That's five players to the world's best starting XI.
• Chelsea meanwhile have signed, are in talks to sign, or will not sign Braga striker Orlando Sa, depending on who you believe. The Blues are also rumored to be after Wigan striker Amr Zaki, but Steve Bruce insists that that will happen over his dead body.
• You better believe that Roman Abramovich has mob contacts and can make that happen.
• Chelsea was also rumored to be after Fluminese defender Thiago Silva, possibly to replace fellow Brazilian Alex, who reportedly wants to leave Stamford Bridge. However, it seems as if Silva to AC Milan is all but a done deal.
• Sunderland's 4-0 win is certainly a positive for interim boss Ricky Sbragia, who is at the very least auditioning for future openings.
• Not so much for Tony Mowbray at West Brom, who doesn't appear to be under any pressure. Presumably management knows that he's at the helm of one of the least talented sides in the league. At any rate, the Baggies better be preparing scouting reports on teams like Cardiff City and Burnley because they'll probably end up playing them next year. Actually, at this point Burnley has a better chance of being up next year than West Brom does.
• Can West Brom say they've beated Fulham, Arsenal, and Chelsea this season. Didn't think so. Sure it was the Carling Cup, but still...
• It will be fascinating to see how Luis Felipe Scolari lines up Chelsea tomorrow afternoon. Will he put Drogba and Anelka both in the starting lineup? I think he should, but the question then becomes who goes in midfield. I would line it up Cech, Bosingwa, Terry, Alex (or Ivanovic), A Cole, Mikel, J Cole, Lampard, Ballack/Deco/Kalou, Drogba, Anelka. It would be a 4-1-3-2 with Mikel in his holding midfield role and two strikers. The only question is how to line up the midfield. Joe Cole goes on one wing but do you put Lampard on the other? Or does Lamps go center? Kalou is more of a winger than Deco or Ballack but Deco and Ballack are higher in the pecking order, assuredly. Perhaps Big Phil will go with a basic 4-4-2 and put Mikel on the bench with Ballack and Lampard in central midfield. Or he may just stick with the 4-1-4-1 and leave either Drogba and Anelka as substitutes.
  

London: The Showstopping Finale! (Act One)

I left my story on Wednesday with me preparing to head to Cadogan Arms for Chelsea's Champions' League match with Bordeaux. Apparently, the group's dinner plans went pear-shaped when some people showed up late and set the whole group back. That was going to make them late for the play so that they might not be able to be seated until intermission. Thus, Dan shuffled in the door just as I was about to leave. We left at the same time and it came out that Tom and Dan were heading to Riley's, the Chelsea bar that Tom and his friends frequent. I wasn't explicitly invited (perhaps because I had already stated my intent to go to Cadogan), but I took the liberty of inviting myself. After all, it's a Chelsea bar, Dan is an Arsenal fan, and Tom is a Chelsea fan but couldn't name more than three Chelsea players. I belonged as much as or more than either of them.

We arrived at the bar and it was still 10 minutes or so before the match so it was relatively empty. We had been warned by Tom that there might be some rough characters, but it was actually quite friendly and nobody troubled us at all. The music selections were odd, though. The first song I heard playing was an old country song, which I couldn't identify. The second was Jeannie C. Riley's hit "Harper Valley PTA." Keep in mind that we are in London, one of the world's poshest cities, in Chelsea, one of London's poshest neighborhoods, and on King's Road, Chelsea's poshest streets. And we are listening to Harper Valley PTA in a dive bar and drinking Strongbow. It was tremendous.

As the game started, the crowd started to shuffle in. Apparently, according to Tom many of the regulars weren't there, which I imagine can be chalked up to a midweek game as opposed to a weekend fixture. Chelsea began sluggishly. Bordeaux was playing beyond a loud home crowd and simply had more urgency. One of the ways you can tell how well a football team is playing is how much space there is in midfield. A motivated team is challenging everything in midfield while a lethargic one gives up tons of space to move. Bordeaux were having there way in that department. Neither team had many strong chances, though and all told it was a boring first half. The second half saw Nicolas Anelka put Chelsea in front. He beat the offsides trap and coolly slotted the ball past the goalkeeper. One on one's look easy when the striker handles them correctly but an unbelievable amount of them are botched. Arsenal missed four against Burnley. It's a testament to Anelka's quality that he handled his so easily. Chelsea seemed to be cruising to the final 16 of the Champions League, but no one goal lead is safe and a defensive laps allowed Bordeaux to equalize with a late header. All in all it was disappointing. Chelsea should have won and been in position to control their own destiny against Cluj. As it happened, they would need to wait until Matchday Six to secure qualification.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, but it wasn't very festive for me. Although things have greatly improved on all fronts since, it sure didn't feel like there was much to give thanks for at the time. I think I had a cottage pie, watched some TV, and that was the extent of my celebration.

I had hoped to go shopping on Friday and maybe pick up a few things from Zaavi and/or Lilywhite's but I wanted to talk to Emily, who was coming back from Cambridge, so I got delayed and didn't get around to it during the day. Emily texted me when she came back from Cambridge and I talked to her. Basically, I was still needing someone to talk to regarding the Laura situation (which is now happily resolved!) and I felt like she was the only one around who would listen. That proved therapeutic and I hoped curry and bowling, which was planned for later in the evening would, too. Emily had told me that Laura would be there, but I thought that it wouldn't bother me. After walking to the Tube and waiting for the train, I realized it would bother me to be able to see Laura having fun but not be able to have fun with her, and I came up with the idea to just get off at Picadilly Circus, go to Zaavi, and spend the night listening to my purchases. I bought Out of Control by Girls Aloud, Tangled Up by Girls Aloud, Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Best of Ian Dury, Prospekt's March EP by Coldplay, Greatest Day (single) by Take That, a Chelsea FC poster, and a Region 2 copy of Save The Last Dance for my London: City of Nations paper. Then, I went to Tesco and bought food and a couple bottles of Magner's. I spent the night surfing the net, listening to my music, and slowly drinking a bottle of Magner's. I heard that bowling was extremely fun and was sad to miss it because I love bowling, but I don't know that it would have been fun for me so I think I made the right decision.

Saturday was the day of the last weekend of rugby union's fall internationals. New Zealand was set to take on England with Australia to face Wales. Given the pounding that England took at the hands of South Africa, I took the liberty of assuming that they wouldn't put up much fight against the All Blacks of New Zealand, who are currently the world's top team. Thus, with the games being played simultaneously, I chose to watch Wales rather than England. Wales had been in the game against both Wales and South Africa before suffering narrow defeats, so it seemed there was a very real chance they could pull it out and beat South Africa. Basically, in rugby union, the three southern hemisphere teams are the powerhouses. Not that the other teams can't beat them, but they are the constants. For a European squad to beat one of the southern hemsiphere teams is a rare and meaningful accomplishment.

I can't remember the details of the game now except that Wales took the lead early and led all the way but never by very much. A quick google indicates that Wales ultimately won 21-18. As I recall, Wales recorded a late penalty to make it an eight point gap, which means that a converted try would still leave Australia short on points. However, Australia gave it a hell of an effort, scoring in the waning moments to cut the gap to three. Unfortunately for the Wallabies, Wales recovered and held on to close out the match. This was easily the best Rugby Union match that I saw while in London and was a perfect advertisement for the game. The players and fans were passionate, the game was intense and free-flowing, and it feature the full breadth of the Union game. There was great wide play, great tight play, excellent kicking (both goal and tactical), and all in all it was just a great showpiece game.

I had a mind that I should get out of the house on Saturday night. I didn't have anyone to go with and it was a pretty chilly night, but I still wanted to go to Warwick Avenue. For the unfamiliar, Warwick Avenue is the title of a number 3 hit by one of my favorite artists, Duffy. For me, Abbey Road held little appeal. Warwick Avenue was the musical location I wanted to see (having already been to Sloane Square, mentioned in the Morrissey song "Hairdresser on Fire"). So that's where I went. Warwick Avenue is on the Bakerloo line, which links with the Piccadilly line at Picadilly Circus.

The first thing I noticed about Warwick Avenue upon leaving the tube is that it is a pretty quiet, obviously residential neighborhood. It's the kind of place where people actually live, as opposed to Chelsea where only millionaires can afford to live. There are plenty of swank looking houses and the whole bit but not much action and much to see. To that end, I set off looking for something even vaguely resembling a high street where I might grab a bite to eat. I didn't really find it, at least not immediately. I saw the odd coffee shop, but I just wandered around until I ran into the canal and had to change direction. Eventually, I ended up on Harrow Road, which was quite busy. I felt a little bit sketchy on Harrow Road, though. I was alone, at night, in an unfamiliar part of an unfamiliar city, and judging by the amount of Arabic writing on the signs and the people walking the streets, I was the wrong color for this neighborhood. Still, it was a busy street so I didn't much fear a mugging if I minded my own business. I walked Harrow Road for a little while hoping I might find a suitable place to eat. There were a number of KFC/Harold's Chicken Shack type places, but I felt that knowing which one to choose and how to order is dependent on local knowledge that I don't possess, so I skipped it.

At this point, I had been walking for 45 minutes or so. It was my intention, in accordance with the song's lyrics, to spend "an hour but no more than two" around Warwick Avenue, so I decided it was soon enough to head back towards Warwick Avenue, which I was pretty far from at this point. I was briefly lost but soon found my way and arrived at the tube station. At this point, I decided to walk the other way from the tube station and see what there was. I arrived at little Venice, where two of the large canals meet each other. It's very pretty at night and would probably be a great place to visit on a summer night, but it being late November, everything was closed up. Still, it was pleasant, so I walked along the canal for a while. Eventually, I came to another Harrow Road-like high street, the name of which escapes me currently. Finally, my hands were numbed and I headed back home. All in all it was a pleasant night, but I couldn't escape the feeling that I would have rather shared it with someone else. Nonetheless, it was I'm sure worthwhile just to get me out of the dorm and seeing London.

I don't recall anything about Sunday or Monday. Tuesday, I finished my essay for Professor Hadley and watched Burnley v. Arsenal. Some of the others went to Avenue Q, but I missed the e-mail about tickets and it's just as well because I think Laura went I probably still wouldn't have been ready to face up to that. Burnley, as it happens, continued their incredible Carling Cup run by defeating Arsenal's youngsters 2-0. Arsenal's youngsters are absurdly talented, but Burnley's veterans just wore them out. They got the first goal, put the Gunners on the back foot, and never really looked in too much danger. That makes it three London clubs, Burnley has defeated in the Carling Cup: Fulham, Chelsea, and Arsenal. And they can make it four if they can manage to beat Tottenham. As for the essay, I thought it turned out decently. Perhaps, my argument was a bit of a stretch, but I got it done early enough that I hoped I could finish Royce's essay by the end of Friday. That did not happen.

Thursday we had been threatened with a double session of Royce's class. Royce, showing his merciful side, thankfully spared us that. In fact, not only did he cut it to a single session but he also only ran class until 1230 and let us out half and hour early. The poor guy was doing everything he could do to make up for earlier miscues in the class. Essentially, he set too ambitious of a syllabus and too large of readings. In addition, there were problems with the distribution of those readings, so doing the readings became incredibly difficult. Moreover, he at first seemed condescending and the class didn't take well to his teaching style of eliciting personal responses from students (hence the class's nickname of "Feelings"). All of this set the class against him early in the quarter and the demanding papers didn't help his case. However, in the last few weeks he realized his errors. He became very flexible about what sources he would allow to be used for the papers, he became very complimentary about us, he restructured his classes so as to make them more friendly and account for the difficulty of the reading, and generally tried to rectify his previous errors. I'm afraid he still got savaged on his evaluations, but I'm sure that it won't affect him too much. He's a good teacher that just needs experience. More annoyingly, many of the students were unnecessarily cruel with their IES evaluations, which led to resentment from the IES staff. Honestly, there were several issues with IES that were annoying, but they weren't things that badly damaged our experiences. That were just annoyances, but many of the people just ripped into IES. I feel like these people are probably rich and get spoiled at home or maybe they are just rotten people, but at any rate, I think they need to grow up.

Alright, that's enough typing for now...Act Two will come a bit a later.

HOME

I finally got home today. More details to follow once I finish my Royce paper, get some good sleep, and take a few deep breaths.

I Finally Have My Computer Back...

But it still does not work. The part that I was waiting for finally came in but it did not fix the problem. Apparently, the graphics card is shot. First thing Monday I'm making a phone call to India so that Dell will take care of it.

On the bright side, the guy at Chelsea.com only charged me for the parts and shipping and not for labor. That came to 67 pounds instead of the 105 pounds I was originally quoted. That seems fair to me so it saved me the trouble of having to haggle, which I was prepared to do.

Song of The Day -- The Loving Kind by Girls Aloud

In the US, pure pop has been almost completely banished from the mainstream. High School Musical, the Jonas Brothers, and Miley Cyrus have done their parts to keep it alive. Also, Britney Spears and Pink still trade (mainly) in that type of music.

In Europe, where rap is far less dominant, pop remains a formidable force on the charts. Not only are there many successful solo acts but also girl groups and *gasp* boy bands (well, Take That and Westlife are hardly boys anymore) remain viable. Girls Aloud is one of the foremost acts in the European and certainly UK pop scene. Originally formed on the reality TV series Popstars: The Rivals, Kimberly Walsh, Nadine Coyle, Nicola Roberts, Cheryl Cole, and Sarah Harding have since put out five studio albums together and a greatest hits collection.

Their latest album is Out Of Control, which reached #1 on the UK album chart. The first single off of the album was "The Promise," which reached #1 on the singles chart. However, today's song of the day is "The Loving Kind." "The Loving Kind" is set to become the second single from Out Of Control.

First of all, the music is brilliant and bouncy and extremely danceable. That is not the reason why I want to spotlight it, though. The lyrics really speak to me and have been stuck in my head the whole week. Here are the full lyrics:

Sometimes
I watch you when you're sleeping
I wonder what you're feeling
Both wide awake and dreaming
Of yesterday

I want you
To kiss away the tensions
The issues never mentioned
With all the best intentions
But you turn away

Oh baby if you find
I'm not the loving kind
I'll buy you flowers
I'll pour you wine
Do anything to change your mind
I know you may be disinclined
To find the love you've left behind
So kiss me then make up your mind
I'm not the loving kind

I'd do anything
Sing a song that lover's sing
If I could change your mind
Then am I not the loving kind?
I'd do anything
Sing a song that lover's sing
If I could change your mind
Then I'm not the loving kind

Somewhere on a Monday morning
In a rush hour of another day
Standing on a crowded platform
Carelessly we lost our way
Sometimes
I watch you when you're sleeping
I wonder what you're feeling
Both wide awake and dreaming
Of yesterday

Oh baby if you find
I'm not the loving kind
I'll buy you flowers
I'll pour you wine
Do anything to change your mind
I know you may be disinclined
To find the love you've left behind
So kiss me then make up your mind
I'm not the loving kind

I'm not the loving kind
I'm not the loving kind

Oh baby if you find
I'm not the loving kind
I'll buy you flowers
I'll pour you wine
Do anything to change your mind
I know you may be disinclined
To find the love you've left behind
So kiss me then make up your mind
I'm not the loving kind

I'm not the loving kind
I'm not the loving kind

Basically, this sums up a lot of what I've been feeling about what happened with me and Laura. I know that we're done and I've accepted that. Still, I can't help but think about what I might have done that would have made things different. I just wonder maybe if I had been a little bit more romantic, maybe she would have found me "the loving kind". Of course, there's every chance that she wouldn't, but that doesn't stop me from wondering...

Anyway, the song is capital B Brilliant and if there's any justice in the music world it's a sure #1 when it's released. It's the kind of song that compels me to hit the "back" button on the computer as soon as it finishes.

You're Not In Good Hands With Heurelho Gomes (Fulham v Tottenham blog)

Every term, IES runs sponsors (subsidizes) a trip to a Premier League football match. Typically, they get tickets to a Fulham match? Why? Well, Chelsea is actually the closer of the two southwest London clubs, but Chelsea is also top of the table. That means that Chelsea tickets are both absurdly expensive and quite difficult to come by. Fulham, on the other hand, is a middle of the road Premier League team at best. Tickets are reasonable (by Premier League standards) and readily available. Thus, booking tickets for a Fulham game was a very reasonable choice.

They made a more interesting choice in what game and section they chose. They chose the Fulham v Tottenham game and booked us in the neutral stands. Tottenham is another London club and is based on the north side of London. As one might expect, a large quantity of Tottenham fans made the short trip to southwest London and the away stands were completely full. And we were among them. The concept of neutral stands is that they are place for fans with no rooting interest in the game. IES decided that that included us. However, the truth is that there are really two sections of the stadium: Fulham fans and opposition fans. The neutral stands are tucked up against the opposition stands, which means that the neutral stands are functionally away stands. In that way, I came to attend my first Premier League match sitting in the away stands for a derby (European terminology for a crosstown rivalry). And I was rooting for Fulham.

Now, let me back up a bit. We met in the lobby of the res hall. Our group was IES Elaine, a bunch of Skidmore kids, Adam, Eugene, Dan, and Me. Dan is, of course, my roommate. Adam is a big Arsenal fan from New York City. He's really nice and generally good fun. Eugene is a Chelsea fan and is the kind of guy who makes everyone cringe when he enters the room. He single-handedly ruined the Chelsea-Liverpool match for me by asking me stupid questions about football and then not waiting for me to finish my answer before asking me another stupid question. Then, Dan walked into the room and he asked Dan the same stupid questions to which Dan gave (surprise!) the exact same answers as me.

We set off together from the Res Hall and took the District line to Putney Bridge. Some of the kids in the group had anxiety about the directions to Craven Cottage (Fulham's stadium). This anxiety was utterly unwarranted. The entire train was full of people going to the game and after getting off the tube there could be no doubt of the directions to Craven Cottage just follow the moving throng of fans towards the stadium. This is exactly what we did.

As we walked, loud, call-and-response cheers went up. At first, I couldn't make them out. Then, Dan told me what they were. Tottenham fans were yelling "YID ARMY!" and other Tottenham fans were calling back "YID ARMY!" You see, Tottenham is a historically Jewish club and many of their supporters are Jewish (many aren't). This led to other clubs' fans calling Tottenham supporters "yids". Yid is a ethnic slur against Jews. Instead of being offended, Tottenham supporters took ownership of the slur and now Tottenham supporters are known as the Yid Army.

In addition we heard some other Tottenham songs/chants. The main alternative was "We Are Tottenham". The lyrics are as follows: "We are Tottenham/We are Tottenham/Super Tottenham/From the Lane/We Are Tottenham/Super Tottenham/From the Lane". The Lane refers to Tottenham's home field, White Hart Lane. Also popular were "We Hate Chelsea". The lyrics to that would be: "We hate Chelsea/We hate Chelsea/We hate Chelsea/And we hate Chelsea/WE HATE CHELSEA!". The fact that Chelsea was not playing in the upcoming game doesn't have anything to do with anything mind you. West Ham also got the same song. Don't ask me why the didn't sing that with regards to the day's opponent Fulham. Apparently, they hate Chelsea and West Ham more. Finally, there were variations on songs about Dimitar Berbatov. Berbatov is a striker for Manchester United. However, before being transferred (sort of like traded) to Manchester in September he played for Tottenham. Word got out that he was looking to be transferred and Manchester United bit. This did not make him popular with Tottenham fans. That leads to mean songs. Most of them revolve around Berbatov's life story as a man who "played himself out of poverty." One I caught began: "Dim-it-tar Ber-ba-tov, his mother works as a window washer...".

This all happened on just the walk up to Craven Cottage, so I knew it would be an intense experience. As we neared the stadium, mounted police (as in, on horses) were everywhere and had megaphones to control the crowd. Things bottle-necked at the gates and we had to wait quite a while to get through. Finally, we got through and we made our way to our seats having missed the first five minutes of the match. Who was my ticket next to? On one side, I had a stranger. On the other, Eugene. On Eugene's left was Dan. On his left was Adam. On his left was a Tottenham fan. There we were, the four of us sitting in between a mass of Tottenham fans. You had Adam and Dan, both Arsenal fans and thus mortal opponents of Tottenham. Arsenal is also based in north London and Tottenham is Arsenal's biggest rival. Thus, they were rooting for Fulham. I am Chelsea fan but was rooting for the home team. Besides, I have a soft spot for Fulham because my favorite player, America's Clint Dempsey, plays for them. Eugene is a Chelsea fan but was rooting for Tottenham for no apparent reason. I should say that Eugene is a Chelsea "fan" loosely. He is the kind of fan with more money than brains. He has spent absurd money on Chelsea tickets and has all manner of Chelsea paraphenalia. He also probably could not name five Chelsea players. He in fact asked me: "Is Henry Chelsea's best player?" That's an utterly confusing question. Is he referring to Thierry Henry (pronounced AWN-REE) who plays for FC Barcelona and has never played for Chelsea or does he mean John Terry, Chelsea's captain. I had no clue. It was definitely an interesting seating situation.

The game itself was tremendous. We were nearly at field level and I can assure you live Premier League football looks nothing like it does on TV. When one watches on TV, it's easy to forget how fast everything takes place, how physical the game is, and how difficult everything is. On TV, it looks so easy, so automatic. Watching it live gives a sense of the speed and chaos of the game. We were right behind the goal that Fulham attacked in the first half, so we had a great view of all the corner kicks and other attacks on goal. In fact, we had a great view of the first goal. Fulahm's Simon Davies launched an extremely speculative long range shot at Tottenham's goalkeeper, Heurelho Gomes. It should not have presented any problems and should have been handled easily by Gomes as it hit him right in the chest. Instead, Gomes fumbled it and some how directed it into his own goal. Technically, Davies got credit for the goal. In actuality, Gomes basically scored on his own team. It was hilarious.

The first half ended with the score Fulham 1 -- Tottenham 0. As the second half started, Tottenham brought on two substitutes. Luka Modric came off in favor of Aaron Lennon and Tom Huddlestone was replaced by Roman Pavlyuchenko. Apparently, our friend Eugene is Russian. Or has a man crush on Roman Pavlyuchenko. Either way, every time the ball got within two or three yards of Pavlyuchenko, we were treated to Eugene screaming "PAVLYUCHENKO!" It was a bit excessive. Thankfully, Pavlyuchenko is mainly used as a target man for service and Fulham defender Brede Hangeland used his impressive height to head any and all service away before it could even get to the Russian. Thus, he was a non factor and we were saved whatever god-awful celebration might have followed a Pavlyuchenko goal.

Fulham added another goal in the second half when Tottenham dealt poorly with a Fulham corner, allowing Fulham striker Andy Johnson to clean up the mess and slot home a goal. That put the score to 2-0 for Fulham with 20 minutes to go. Tottenham substitute Frazier Campbell pulled one back for the visitors in the 81st minute. Frazier Campbell is an interesting figure. As part of the Berbatov deal, Manchester United sent back Campbell on a full-season loan to Tottenham. Now, Campbell has became one of Tottenham's most dangerous attackers. Manchester United has accordingly decided that they may try to break their deal and take him back at mid-season. Say what you will, the Premier League is not without its intrigues. Fortunately for Fulham, it was too little to late. Final score: Fulham 2 -- Tottenham 1.

Not only did we hear songs before the game but we also heard them during. We got all the ones I mentioned previous to the game and a few more. There was "When The Spurs Go Marching In". That would be "When The Saints Go Marching In" with the lyrics changed to include Tottenham's nickname "Spurs," which derives from there full name Tottenham Hotspur. There was also "Come...On...You...Spurs!" sung slowly and repeatedly. From the Fulham side I could make out the old "Let's Go!" chant (da da da-da-da da-da-da-da LET'S GO!) with the Let's Go! replace with "Ful-Ham!" and singing of the tune to Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," which is played after the game.

Overall, it was an amazing experience that I enjoyed. It's a completely different experience from attending an NFL game or NHL game. It's slightly more like Wrestlemania (without the pyro, though) but actually the crowd is most similar to that of an indy wrestling show in terms of the involvement and the vocalness. When you combine that atmosphere with action from the world's best league of the world's most popular sport, you have special experience indeed. That's why Dan and I got tickets to Fulham's December 6 match against Manchester City (this time in the home seats). I'm very excited to go back and see what it's like to be in the midst of a home crowd.

Any Requests?

If anyone wants a London souvenir or wants me to take pictures of some certain London thing, they should notify me quick-like. I'm going to do some personal shopping Friday and pick up a few things for myself, so if anybody wants anything that would be a convenient time to let me know that.

Catching Up and Cleaning Up

Ok, so I'm finally about to get up to mentioning what's happened in the last 3 weeks. Of course, I've forgotten quite a few things but that will honestly just make it a better read most likely as I'll (finally) only mention the important things. First, however, some house-cleaning. Here are blogs that I intend to write soon.

* Yorkshire Field Trip -- I want to include pictures on this one because I took quite a few of them up there but I don't have my computer back yet.
* Fulham v Tottenham -- Just haven't got around to this yet.
* A Virtual Tour of the Neighborhood -- I've taken a lot of pictures of the views from our room and also what the walk from the dorm to the tube station looks like but here again I'm foiled by the lack of my computer.

Now, for the last three weeks. The last important thing that I did not mention was Election Night. Waiting for the returns to come in was somewhat painful. With the time difference of 5 hours, it meant that the first results did not come in until 12 AM local time. In the meantime, there was Champions League on. I'm not sure if I've mentioned Champions League before, but Champions League is the competition between the top teams of all the European football (or soccer, if you prefer) leagues. Liverpool was playing Atletico Madrid at Liverpool. I happen to dislike Liverpool. This is mainly because my favorite team is Chelsea. Chelsea is currently leading the Premier League. Second place? Yep, Liverpool. Even though this is a different competition, I wanted Liverpool to bite it. An early goal put Madrid in the lead and in the waning minutes of the game it looked as if the visitors would hold on and win both the game and the group. In the 94th minute--and I don't even believe that there should have been 4 minutes of stoppage time--Steven Gerrard, Liverpool's captain and star player, threw himself at the ball in the Madrid penalty area. He made contact with a Madrid defender and the penalty was given. Gerrard slotted it home and Liverpool salvaged a miracle draw. The problem? The foul should have been on Gerrard. The Madrid defender went straight up while Gerrard recklessly threw himself into the defender. I was just short of livid and screaming at the TV. Anyhow, it was fun but I was a little bit worried that Steven Gerrard might some how steal a miracle win for John McCain. It would be in character for him to do so.

As we all know, that did not happen. After the Liverpool v Madrid game, I went down to the dorm’s election night party where Mieke, the resident director, was so nice as to bring her Skybox in and hook it up to the TV so that we could watch CNN's election coverage. We watched election related youtube videos (mostly Daily show clips) to pass the time before results came in. Once results started, it was all eyes on the TV and the room was packed full. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Laura and chatting with her all night. She was mock indignant with me for confidently averring that Obama was sure to win. The reason for my confidence was that every poll and all reports about ground games indicated that Obama was in a much stronger position and that only some bizarre fluke could lead to a McCain win. Soon enough, it became clear that I was right as Obama racked up state after state en route to the Presidency. However, I was little able to enjoy this development because I made the mistake of divulging the fact that I didn’t vote. The reason I didn’t vote is simply because of how cumbersome it is to vote from abroad. Also, with Pennsylvania polling solidly in Obama’s camp, I felt that my vote would not be crucial. Even when Pennsylvania proved to be a landslide win for Obama, this fact was still held against me, which led to me unfortunately losing my temper at around 5 AM and barking at Ali.

That was my election experience. It was fun watching history be made but the polls sort of drained all suspense for me. Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity to bond with Laura. The worst part, though, was that not only did I end up dead tired the next day, but I also ended up voiceless. All the talking and Steven Gerrard-related yelling left me quite hoarse.

The next day my only major activity was scouting dinner locations for my date with Laura. First, let’s back up a bit. After starting as a unified 24, groups, as they tend to do, started to form. Mainly there are three groups. Caelyn, Greg, Andy, Josh, Gabe Cahn, Hilary, Margot, Blake, and Francesca constitute one group. Dmitri, Michael, Gabe Grossman, Marie, and Tom constitute another (Marie, as you might be able to guess, is a very attractive girl). Lastly, there is myself, Dan, Lisbeth, Laura, Katie, Michelle, Constance, and Ali. Given this state of things, I spent a good deal of time hanging out with and around Laura. On the way to seeing Chicago, Josh, Laura, Roderick, and I got a bit lost (or rather we got poor directions) in Piccadilly Circus. I misread a sign. Then we turned the wrong way because Josh and Laura decided to go right when I said we should go left. Finally, we picked out the restaurant that we were supposed to find. These navigational misadventures formed the subject of some playful arguments between Laura and me. Laura would make fun of me for misleading the group; I would counter that she misled us equally. These arguments were, I thought, rather flirtatious in character. I had long half fancied her and these arguments brought us a bit closer. As I detected what I felt was further flirtation from her, I became surer that I wished to ask her out. In fact, I’m rather sure that the day long illness I suffered was a consequence of my emotions making me both sleepless and nauseous. I resolved myself that I had to just man up and ask her.

So I did. She responded affirmatively. In fact, if you want to be technical, she asked me out. I simply pulled her aside and told her that I fancied her, which led to her catching my drift and asking if I wanted to go out on a date. Of course, I did. The Yorkshire trip being on Friday of that week prevented us from going out then. Saturday was to be reserved for Guy Fawkes Day celebrations (it turned out to be a miserable day and a washout). Sunday would be reserved for homework. Thus, my gratification was delayed. I formed a new plan. I bought tickets for Never Forget, which is the musical featuring the songs of one of my favorite pop artists, Take That. We would grab an early dinner and then follow it up with seeing the show. That was set for Friday. Hence, on Wednesday, I headed to the area around the Savoy Theatre to scout possible dinner locations. I settled on Garfunkel’s, a tacky, touristy, sort of diner. True, it was not the most romantic possible choice, but I wished to keep things cheap and was afraid that going too far over the top would come off as too forward.

Friday, then, was our date. Laura, as I had hoped she would, looked rather alluring. She was wearing a nice dress and her leather boots that I happen to think are incredibly sexy. I went with my dressiest possible attire: khaki pants, blue dress shirt. I was nervous beforehand, especially when she showed up three minutes late as a consequence of her cell phone clock being three minutes slow, but my nerves quickly went away. We conversed easily all the way to Garfunkel’s and then over dinner. Mostly, we just talked about family and how it was when we were a kid. I offered to pay, but she insisted on paying her share on account that she is a “modern girl”. I protested but was secretly pleased by her modernity. We made it just in time for the show to start. It was everything I hoped it would be. That is, it was a big, colorful, cheesy, sing-along sort of musical. I had never imagined that I would see “Once You’ve Tasted Love” as a burlesque number or a salsa rendition of “It Only Takes a Minute” but I did and it was brilliant. By the way, when (if) I get married, I hope that my bride will agree to use the lyrics to “Never Forget” as our vows. When we got back to the dorm, Laura commented (much to my relief) that she had a really great time and suggested that we see Quantum of Solace before she departed on Monday for 7th week break. Unfortunately, paper writing made that something of an impossibility.

Everyone left by Monday morning for interim break, which left me depressed. I had no computer, no companionship, and to top it all off it was a dreary, drizzly London day. Also, I realized that I had a lot of work to do. I needed to do plenty of reading for both Professor Hadley’s Slums and Slumming class and Professor Mahawatte’s course. This realization, combined with my unwillingness to travel alone, conspired to make me scrap my own travel plans. Thus, it was a rather miserable week. I simply read, played solitaire, watched tv, and waited for humanity to return to me. Friday night, Dan returned and with him so did relatively easy computer access. Saturday, we went to the Fulham v Tottenham game (which will get a separate blog). Sunday, the girls returned from their travels and Buffalo gagged another game.

I was hoping that the old adage would prove true and that absence would indeed make the heart grow fonder and lead Laura to eagerly seek me out upon her return. Perhaps because she didn’t spend the whole week alone, and thus wasn’t dying for companionship, this wasn’t the case. I convinced myself that I was just being paranoid, but now it seems that this should have struck me as the beginning of the end. Monday, I enquired if Laura wished to go out with me on a second date for my birthday. In retrospect, I regret this because I left her no choice but to say yes. I should have left that date until Friday so that she would not have to dance around my birthday. Regardless, I wished to make my 21st birthday special and could think of no better way to do so than going out with her. We would eat at the Stockpot before catching a showing of Quantum of Solace, which she had been wishing to see. Once again, conversation flowed easily and I was very relaxed. She insisted on paying for the meal on account of it being my birthday (another reason I feel bad for leveraging my birthday the way I did) but on the condition that I buy her dinner on her birthday. Then, we headed across the street to the film. UK films are preceded by a good 15 minutes of commercials and then a couple trailers so we were afforded plenty of opportunity to chat. Finally, the movie started. It was decent but the way it was cut made the plot hard to follow. Honestly, I had zero interest in the movie. It just seemed a convenient thing to do with Laura and I knew that she had wanted to see it. Overall, the date seemed to go well and she suggested that we do something on the weekend after our papers were due on Friday.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be like that. Thursday she found me in the lounge and told me that it wasn’t working for her and that she just wanted to be friends. I could go on and in fact wrote a lot more about this before deleting it because it just wasn’t fair to Laura to air it out over the internet. The gist of it is that we ended up talking and because I was pretty heartbroken I acted immaturely and selfishly and made things worse than they should have been. So, now things are a little awkward between us, but I’m making it my mission to rectify that and prove to her and to myself that I was even slightly worthy of her. The rest of Thursday and Friday were pretty difficult because I was still feeling down, but I muddled through.

Saturday, I stayed in and watched rugby all day and rugby did its best to cheer me up. The day began with the final of the Rugby League World Cup. Australia was heavily favored to win the World Cup by beating New Zealand. After all, they had defeated them 30-6 just a couple weeks ago during the group stage. Moreover, they had absolutely demolished England during the group stage and likewise crushed Fiji in the semifinals. It looked to the entire world that there was no team in the world capable of even challenging the Kangaroos. The Kiwis, however, didn’t get the memo. After Australia scored the first two tries to go up 10-0, it looked as if the rout was on. Australia was in fine form and was cutting through the New Zealand defense. New Zealand, however, showed an impressive fight back. They came back with two converted tries for a 12-10 lead and it went to half time 16-12 in favor of Australia. Surely, though, Australia would come back after the break, assert their dominance, and destroy New Zealand. Again, New Zealand had other ideas. A concerted Kiwi performance combined with several Australia miscues allowed New Zealand to win the second half 22-4 and win 34-20. This constitutes one of the biggest upsets in rugby history. New Zealand was given 10-1 odds against winning and won by 14.

Later, it was time for some Rugby Union fall internationals. First of all, it was time for England v. South Africa at Twickenham. The Springboks of South Africa are the defending World Cup champions. After winning the World Cup in 2007, their form has been somewhat patchy but they remain one of the world’s strongest teams. Such is their dominance that a 20-15 victory over Six Nations champion Wales and a 14-10 win over Scotland were considered signs of vulnerability. England was coming off an impressive win over the Pacific Islanders 39-13, which they followed with a 28-14 loss to Australia. They were looking to bounce back after that disappointing result. Instead, the Springboks embarrassed England. England frequently challenged the Springbok try line, but South Africa’s defense was stout and they simply could not be penetrated. Meanwhile, English miscues yielded easy points for the world champs. When all was said and done the score was South Africa 42, England 6. It was England’s worst ever defeat at Twickenham and it comes before next week’s clash with New Zealand, arguably a stronger side.

The third game featured New Zealand’s fearsome All Blacks against Wales, the grand slam champions of the Six Nations. Wales was looking to pull the upset just as New Zealand had done earlier in the day in Rugby League. In the first half, they looked up to it. The pack played powerfully and strong tactical kicking allowed Wales to jump out to a 9-6 half time lead. However, the All Blacks came roaring back in the second half of play. New Zealand grabbed control of the game and refused to let it go. All of a sudden, Wales could not get any possession. New Zealand repeatedly pinned them back in their own end forcing clearance kicks. Wales just simply couldn’t win the kicking battles and always ended up ceding ground and the ball. Wales put up a brave show of try line defense but New Zealand’s relentless pressure was eventually enough to crack them. If I recall correctly, the final score was New Zealand 22, Wales 9.

Sunday I woke up late and didn’t get around to doing too much before the NFL games came on. Miami v New England was on Sky so I watched that and Dan shouted out updates from around the league as he monitored them on the internet. Overall, it was a pretty relaxing day. As I write this, it is late Monday night. I have a report to do tomorrow and I haven’t started my part. Time to get on it. Anyhow, that has been my last three weeks.

Before I go, though, I have to mention one more thing. I owe a huge debt of gratitude that I will probably never be able to repay to Greg Nieder and Emily Ponder. Greg is about the best friend a guy could possibly ask for. He’s always there for me when I need him and he really helped me through things after I was feeling the disappointment of what happened between Laura and me. Emily is our course assistant and she also helped me gain some clarity after what happened. I took things pretty hard, not so much because of anything to do with Laura (who I can’t fault at all), but because it brought back a lot of old feelings of depression and inadequacy. Emily helped me see the bigger picture just as she did when I was feeling desperately depressed in Wales. I’m not sure what I would have done without Greg and Emily but I’m sure that it would not have been good, so I can’t thank them enough.

Postscript -- It's now Wednesday evening, tonight we have tickets to see Neil LaBute's play In A Dark Dark House. The wounds are still pretty fresh, so it's still difficult for me to be around Laura (and I already have to go to class every day). For that reason, I'm skipping the play (it does not sound like my cup of tea anyway) and am going to stay back, go to the local pub, and watch Chelsea play Bordeaux. Right now, I need something that will make me happy, not a play about a man who was abused as a child.

Also, frustratingly, I did my part of our report, which involved writing discussion questions about the Salvation Army, but Professor Hadley did not use them. She had her own questions for discussion and was hoping to get back around to mine but ran out of time. That means I stayed up an extra hour working on discussion questions that she never actually looked at. I could have wrote anything for those questions or, in all probability, nothing at all and it would have been the same to her! That's just how it's been for me these last couple weeks.

A Beginners Introduction To: The Premier League

NOTE: This is all about 2-3 weeks out of date by now, but I’ll have a new entry on the recent developments in the Premier League up soon.

There are certainly many things that I will miss about London when I come home and there are some things that I will assuredly be glad to have back upon my return. For example, I will miss having public transport that actually runs on time, but I will be glad to have cheap fast food once again. There is something particularly heinous about a “value meal costing” £5 or roughly $8-9. Anyhow, the thing that I will probably miss most about London is the sport scene. Most of all, I will miss Sky Sports 1, 2, and 3.

Sky Sports fills 24 hours of programming time a day on three channels with a steady diet of football (that is, soccer), rugby (league and union), cricket (like baseball, only more tedious), golf, tennis, WWE, and American football (it’s just as easy to follow the Bills here as it is in Chicago). Mainly, it is the first three of those that dominate and provide the marquee events. Now, I can’t be bothered to watch cricket for long spells because it is incredibly boring. It makes baseball look fast paced and exciting. At least in baseball there are outs every so often. Cricket simply consists of long spells of batters lazily running out singles until finally, by the mercy of Zeus, the occasional ball is caught or wicket is hit. Don’t worry if that doesn’t make sense. Just trust me that it is only a sport for the patient who have too much time on their hands. On the other hand, I love rugby (probably my favorite sport of them all) and football. The problem with being a football fan in America is that besides ESPN showing the occasional Champions League game it is simply never on unless you have Fox Soccer Channel on the premium tier of your cable or satellite. It might, I suppose, be possible to get a Sunday Ticket sort of subscription to the Premier League (or at least it ought to be) but otherwise it is not to be found. ESPN also shows the occasional MLS game but there is one problem with MLS. The level of play sucks. There is a reason that the growth of MLS has been slow and painful. The quality of play is simply awful. There are, I’m sure, many football fans in America who simply won’t watch it because it’s so far from the top level of football. That said, I support the MLS and do take pleasure in the occasional game, but it is not in the same universe as the Premier League. To wit: Clint Dempsey is a USA international and was clearly our best player at World Cup 2006. He was, when he left MLS, arguably its best player. Currently he comes off the bench for Fulham, which is the 4th best team in London. Not the 4th best team in the Premier League but the 4th best team in London and that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are better than West Ham, which is probably a 50/50 proposition. Clint Dempsey, one of America’s best players, formerly one of MLS’s best players can’t even crack the starting line-up at a mediocre Premier League side. That says about all you need to know about MLS and the quality of American football. On the other hand, Juan Pablo Angel currently is one of MLS’s most dangerous strikers. The Argentinean formerly was a solid, but relatively unheralded striker at Aston Villa, an average plus Premier League side. Then his career took a bit of a slide and he joined the New York Red Bulls. He immediately became one of the best players in the league.

All of this is to say that quality football is simply not to be seen in the US unless you find can find a pub in the States that will show the games. For that reason, I am trying to soak up as much Premier League goodness as I can while I’m here. Now, with the product so unavailable, you, the American, are probably ignorant of the happenings in the Premier League. Have no fear. I’m here to try to teach you the basics of the Premier League and get you caught up on the major stories of the season so far.

What is it? The Barclay’s Premier League is a 20 team football league. It is the top league of English (and Welsh, technically, although there are currently no Welsh sides in the league) football and arguably the best football league in the world. Only Spain’s 1st Division, more commonly known as La Liga is any competition for this honour. The league itself runs from fall through spring with each team playing each other team in the league both at home and away. With 20 teams, that means 38 weekends of football, leaving only summer as an off-season.
Premier League teams also compete in other competitions. The Carling Cup is the Football Association’s (FA) cup competition that is open to all teams in league football. That is, it is open to teams in the Premier League, Championship, League One, and League Two. The teams in these top four divisions of British football are all professional. In the lower leagues of the FA, the squads are a mixture of pro or, more commonly, semi-pro and amateur. The top 4 finishers in the Premier League each year qualify for the Champions League, which is a cup competition featuring the top sides in European football. Essentially, the champions of each league of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) qualify for the Champions League and more prominent leagues (England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France) are granted multiple qualifiers. Teams that fail to qualify for the Champions League may earn a spot in UEFA’s second tier cup competition, the UEFA Cup. This year, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United are playing in the Champions League and Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, and Manchester City are competing in the UEFA Cup. All of these competitions run concurrently. The Carling Cup, Champions League, and UEFA Cup have fixtures on weekdays so that they do not conflict with regular league play, which takes place on Saturdays and Sundays.

These other competitions, especially the Champions League, are fascinating and worthy of their very own primers, but our focus here is the Premier League itself.

What’s at Stake? Ultimately, each team’s goal is to win the Premier League itself. For each fixture, three points are given for a win, one point is given for a draw, and zero points are given for a loss. At the end of the season, the team with the most points is the champion of the league. In the event of a tie, goal differential (or net goals—goals scored minus goals conceded—if you prefer) is the tiebreaker. For many clubs, this is not a realistic goal, however. There are four clubs who currently dominate the league by virtue of their wealth and corresponding powers of player procurement. Since there is no salary cap in football, the wealthiest clubs are free to spend as much as they please with their own budgets as their only constraint. The clubs of this “Big Four” are Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Manchester United. These four teams are essentially the only ones who can legitimately be thought threats to win the league. That leaves other sides with different goals. For the next tier of clubs, sneaking in to a top 4 placement by edging out one of the Big Four and earning a Champions League berth is probably their highest reasonable aspiration. Otherwise, they compete for UEFA cup berths and also prestige. More successful clubs are more likely to attract star players during transfer season. Star players can hopefully help a club eventually crack the Big Four. For the lower tier teams, rivalry games and mere survival are probably the main concern. Local rivalry games are known in European football parlance as derbies (pronounced dar-bies not der-bies as in America). Fulham, for example, likely puts a special emphasis on games against their West London neighbors, powerhouse Chelsea. Note that Fulham Road actually is a road passing through Chelsea. Survival is also important. European football leagues operate on a promotion and relegation system. The Premier League is the top of the heap in English football and is the highest level of promotion (however Champions League spots function as promotions of sorts). However, the bottom three clubs in the Premier League each year are relegated to the Championship. That is, they will play the next season in the Championship. The top two Championship sides automatically earn promotion to the Premier League for the next season and a playoff is held for the third Premier League birth. This system functions throughout the FA. Championship teams, for example can be relegated to League One and replaced by League One sides and League One sides can be relegated to League Two and replaced by squads from that league. Since a Premier League spot means greater visibility, more money, and the chance to attract better players, relegation is bitterly feared and competition to avoid the bottom of the table is fierce. This unique system altogether eliminates the possibility of teams who are struggling giving up and tanking.

Who Plays? The best way to answer this is to throw up the table (or standings, if you prefer). Ideally, in a world where I had convenient internet access, I would have an up to date table. Alas, I have no such thing and so will have to settle for a table that is one week out of date. Here it is:

Team Played Won Drew Lost For Against Goal Differential Points
Chelsea 11 8 2 1 27 4 23 26
Liverpool 11 8 2 1 16 8 8 26
Manchester United 10 6 3 1 19 8 11 21
Arsenal 11 6 2 3 23 12 11 20
Aston Villa 11 6 2 3 19 14 5 20
Hull 11 6 2 3 17 18 -1 20
Everton 11 4 3 4 15 19 -4 15
Middlesboro 11 4 2 5 11 16 -5 14
Portsmouth 11 4 2 5 11 17 -6 14
Manchester City 11 4 1 6 23 18 5 13
West Ham 11 4 1 6 15 19 -4 13
Stoke 11 4 1 6 13 19 -6 13
Blackburn 11 3 4 4 13 20 -7 13
Newcastle 11 3 3 5 14 18 -4 12
Sunderland 11 3 3 5 9 16 -7 12
Fulham 10 3 2 5 8 9 -1 11
Wigan 11 3 2 6 13 16 -3 11
Bolton 11 3 2 6 10 13 -3 11
West Bromwich Albion 11 3 2 6 10 18 -8 11
Tottenham 11 2 3 6 13 17 -4 9

The major events of the past weekend were that Arsenal beat Manchester United 2-1 at the Emirates while Tottenham beat Manchester City 2-1. Chelsea beat Blackburn 2-0 while Liverpool dusted West Brom 3-0. The upshot of all this is that Arsenal has leapfrogged Manchester United for third place in the table. Chelsea and Liverpool retain their spots. Meanwhile, Tottenham finally climes out of last place by moving to 12 points. Note that European football grounds’ names often stand in for the team and are thrown around quite liberally. Arsenal formerly played at Highbury but now have a new stadium sponsored by Emirates Airlines and simply known as “the Emirates”. This works for almost all Premier League teams. Liverpool=Anfield, Chelsea=Stamford Bridge, Manchester United=Old Trafford, Tottenham=White Hart Lane, Fulham=Craven Cottage and so forth. This is especially important because football has a notably large home field advantage. Teams score more goals and have more fouls assessed against opponents on home grounds. This is not surprising considering the loud atmospheres featuring singing, chanting supporters that are peculiar to football stadiums. Now a few words about the teams (in table order):

• Chelsea – Chelsea is not historically as important of a club as Liverpool or Manchester United or even Tottenham. They recently rose to prominence after being acquired by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich who used his deep pockets to assemble one of the most powerful clubs in the world. Chelsea beat Middlesboro, a team solidly ensconced in the upper half of the table, 5-0 on the road when missing seven top players. They were Petr Cech, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, Joe Cole, Didier Drogba, and either Ashley Cole, John Terry, or Deco who were in and out of fitness at the time such that I can’t recall who was the injured player that particular game. Cech is arguably the finest goalkeeper in the world. Ballack has long been Germany’s star player. Cole starts for England. Drogba is perhaps the best player from all of Africa. Essien is among his major competition for that distinction (along with Arsenal’s Adebayor and Barcelona’s Eto’o). These are players that would easily start on any non-Big Four Premier League side. Chelsea was without them all. They still won 5-0 on the road. That’s a testament to their depth and the depth of Abramovich’s pockets. It also makes them fun to watch and yes I am a bandwagon fan of the best team. I admit it at least and I hope that makes it less odious. In my defence, I am living in Chelsea itself right now.

• Liverpool – The most amusing thing I can think of about Liverpool is that they played Atletico Madrid in Champions League and actually started more Spaniards than Madrid. Madrid, while chock full of Brazilians, Portuguese, and Argentineans, only started 3 Spaniards. Liverpool started four (Reina, Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso, and one other who is escaping me at the moment). This is without Fernando Torres, who is their star striker and who scored the winning goal in the European Championship final for Spain against Germany, who was on the shelf with an injury. They are also managed by a Spaniard. This just underscores the international nature of the Premier League. That list of injured Chelsea players? They are from the Czech Republic, Portugal, Ghana, Germany, England, Cameroon (I think), England, England, and Portugal, respectively. Calling it the English Premier League really should only be done to differentiate it from the Scottish Premier League and other “Premier Leagues”. The Premier League is truly international in its player base. This is true not just of the rich clubs but throughout the league. Anyhow, Liverpool us one of the truly historic football clubs of the world and the Reds have been consistently dominant in recent years.

• Arsenal – Arsenal’s manager is Frenchman Arsene Wenger. Wenger is peculiar in his refusal to make consistent big moves in the transfer markets. Instead, Wenger’s way at Arsenal has been to acquire and develop the best young talent and use them as the basis of the team. This has been remarkably successful if somewhat controversial. While many Gunners fans assuredly would like some veteran talent acquisitions in hopes of reclaiming the glory days of 2003/2004, when Arsenal went undefeated in the Premier League, Arsenal’s youth strategy has allowed them to remain firmly in the Big Four without breaking the bank. It also leads to fun games like Tuesday’s Carling Cup fixture with Wigan. The Carling Cup, being the third priority for teams like Arsenal who are in the Champions League, tends to get short shrift. Top teams typically play watered down sides in the early rounds and rest starters. If they should get knocked out, they are hardly concerned. If they make the late stages, they may decide they’d like some silverware and bring out the big guns. This leads to upsets like Burnley, a Championship team, defeating top of the table Chelsea as they did Wednesday. Arsene Wenger basically pioneered this approach. Each year, he uses the Carling Cup to showcase and give experience to his young players. Tuesday his team featured no players older than 23 year old goal keeper Fabianski and an average age of just over 19. 16 year old Jack Wilshere was among the starting eleven. This is extreme even for Arsenal whose stars include 21 year old Cesc Fabregas and 19 year-old Theo Walcott. None of the players started against Manchester United on the weekend. Wigan, on the other hand, played 10 of the 11 players that took the pitch for them on the weekend. They played their A-team, a team load with experience at around 26 years of age on average. How did Arsenal’s kids do against Wigan’s top squad? They whipped them, 3-0. Young Jack Wilshere threaded the needled to find Jay Simpson for the first goal. Then, Carlos Vela found Simpson for his second. Finally, the 19 year old Mexican international Vela scored on a sublime chip for Arsenal’s third. A BBC commentator opined that this squad, essentially Arsenal’s youth team, could finish as high as 6th if they were a regular Premier League squad. I guess the kids are alright indeed in North London.

• Manchester United – Manchester United is frequently referred to by American sportswriters as the “Yankees of football” but more it is equally apt to say that the Yankees are the “Manchester United of baseball”. Simply put, they are the biggest brand name in European football. They have the mystique, the history, and, importantly, the results. Not content to live on the glowing memories of their glorious treble season—in 1999 (or so) they won the Champions, League, Carling Cup, and Premier League in the same year, which is as good as it gets—Manchester United pulled an impressive double last year. They captured both the Premier League and Champions League. This year, they are lagging slightly behind Chelsea and Liverpool but no one dares count them out of the title race. The best reason why may be Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese superstar is arguably the world’s best player and is certainly in the top handful. When put together with lethal strikers like Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney, he is the key to an explosive offence that is also backed by a high-quality defence starring Dutch keeper Edwin Van Der Sar and long-time standout England defender Rio Ferdinand.

• Aston Villa – Villa are trying to upset the Big Four hierarchy by sneaking in and stealing a Champions League position, and so far they are doing an excellent job of it. Gareth Barry as already established himself as a key part of Fabio Capello’s England squad and striker Gabriel Agbonlahor gives him a capable target man. Villa are no early season fluke. They look to be in it to win it (it being 4th place).

• Hull City – Hull are exhibit A in “the magic of promotion and relegation”. Just a few years ago Hull was a struggling League Two club. Now, Hull has risen through the ranks and is competing in the Premier League. Not only are they competing, but so far they are also avoiding the relegation yo-yo game that plagues newly promoted clubs. It may be a tall task to ask them to remain in the top half of the table, but with Brazilian midfielder Geovanni is sparkling form, relegation for Hull seems a long shot indeed.

• Everton – The other team from Liverpool. American Tim Howard stars in goal.

• Middlesboro – Managed by Gareth Southgate, who looks to be approximately 25, at most, Middlesboro is proof positive that sides relying mostly on homegrown, English players can survive in a Premiership where Arab sheiks (Manchester City) and Russian billionaires (Chelsea) are constantly buying up foreign stars.

• Portsmouth – Inexplicably known as “Pompey” (I’m sure there’s an explanation, actually. I just don’t know it), Portsmouth is fairly boring, but I like their uniforms (or kit, in British lingo).

• Manchester City – City was recently purchased by Arab billionaires, who have vowed to spare no expense in making City a threat to the Big Four generally and their crosstown rivals, Manchester United, particularly. First purchase: Brazil’s Robinho who is what is technically known as “really freakin’ good” and has made City a dangerous offensive club. Man City’s problem: they concede far too many goals. Possible solution: rumours indicate that City may be preparing to offer Juventus a whopping £50-60m for star goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon in the January transfer window. I have a feeling that Man City will be going toe to toe with the Big Four soon enough. It’s just a matter of how soon their owners can buy up enough talent.

• West Ham – Barack Obama has a standing invitation for tickets at Upton Park, West Ham’s home ground. Why? Obama apparently has been to Upton Park before because his sister’s husband (if I recall correctly) is a Hammers fan. I just can’t believe the leader of the free world would be caught watching a game of the team that I consider to be the 5th best club in London (although the table doesn’t reflect that just yet).

• Stoke – Newly promoted, Stoke has drawn headlines for the way some of their goals have been scored. Rory Delapp’s powerful throw-ins have become true weapons for Stoke. Essentially, every time stoke wins a throw-in near the opposition penalty area, it is functionally equivalent to having won a corner. Since teams are not quite sure how to defend such a tactic, many cheap goals have been scored by this method.

• Blackburn – Yawn. The descriptions are getting (mercifully) shorter as I go. Why? There simply isn’t anything to say about Blackburn. Mediocrity is chronically uninteresting.

• Newcastle – Rumours persist that Newcastle will be sold and that manager Joe Kinnear will be replaced. Kinnear is supposed to stay on as long as the owners remain, but his contract comes up every month. Will he be resigned for another month? Only Newcastle management knows.

• Sunderland – I’m convinced that Sunderland is the coolest name of the Premier League teams. I love it. I’m also convinced that manager Roy Keane has the best beard in the Premier League.

• Fulham – One of two southwest London clubs, Fulham is significantly less successful and less well-bankrolled than Chelsea. However, the Cottagers are perhaps more accessible (read: their tickets are both affordable and possible to acquire) making them the friendly home team that you actually have to root for instead of just watching their inevitable, clinical domination. American Clint Dempsey, is, as previously mentioned, a sometimes starter.

• Wigan – Boring.

• Bolton – I appreciate their full name. Bolton Wanderers. It doesn’t sound intimidating but it does give them a certain…something.

• West Brom – I would put money on them getting relegated if you could get decent odds anywhere. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure they’ll be back for 2010-2011 after a spell in the Championship.

• Tottenham Hotspur – Oh, Tottenham. I have a lot to write about Tottenham but I wish to save most of it for my Fulham v Tottenham blog entry. The bare-bones facts are this. Tottenham was seriously underperforming until Juande Ramos was sacked and Harry Redknapp was hired away from Portsmouth. Suddenly, Spurs players starting justifying their salaries and playing markedly improved football, leaving the world to wonder how much of a jackass Juande Ramos must have been. Given Tottenham’s history, a spot in the relegation zone has to be considered an embarrassment but it appears that it will be quite temporary.

The Stories of the Season…So Far
• Chelsea and Liverpool off to a flying start – Despite injuries, the two clubs have been remarkably consistent and have set a torrid pace atop the league table

• Inconsistent Arsenal – Arsenal has been all over the shop. One week they are looking invincible the next week they fall prey to their inexperience and lose to an inferior team. With each bad loss and each Liverpool and Chelsea win, the Gunners title challenge becomes more of a longshot.

• Can Villa Crack the Top Four? – Aston Villa appears to be capable of mounting a serious challenge for a Champions League birth.

• Surprising Hull – Given little chance to stay up by pundits, Hull has been huge surprise. Can they keep it up?

• Tottenham Turnaround – Spurs have been sensational since bringing on Harry Redknapp. Darren Bent is in incredible form and Spurs are firing on all cylinders. How high can Tottenham rise after handicapping themselves with such a poor start?

Song of the Day--Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream

After a truly awful week, today is a really hard day. It's just one of those days where you don't want to get out of bed. To cheer myself up, I've been listening to the Beautiful People soundtrack. The act of listening to the soundtrack is sort of bittersweet itself because Beautiful People will always have some strange associations for me now. Nonetheless, the soundtrack fits my musical sensibilities perfectly and is mostly peppy and upbeat. Thus, it is good for cheering up.

One of the songs on the soundtrack is Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream. It was a #1 hit in 1994 and rose to prominence again after being used by Tony Blair and Labour during their 1997 campaigns.

To be honest, I can't make heads or tales of the lyrics, but the chorus is just a belter and it's great to sing along to. Following it on the album are Don't Cry Out Loud and Confide In Me. It's like a three track sequence programmed for specially for a depressed Europop fan. Which I am. So it totally works.

Youtube link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl-ai9HuR60

Computer Update

It is still not fixed! I'm now officially angry about this. The technician was going to order the cable 2 Thursdays ago. Now, nearly two weeks later I haven't heard back. I went to the repair shop today and the technician was not in. The guy working the desk did not know anything about my computer. He told me to come back tomorrow. If I don't get a call tomorrow from them, I'm going to be furious. This is costing me far too much money for them to go nearly two weeks (and almost four in total!) without getting a simple repair done. That's totally unforgivable, as I see it.

Wales Day Four: The Long Awaited Anticlimax

Way back when, shortly after the Wales trip actually ended, I wrote about the first three days of said journey. Well, there were actually four days, and I’m only getting around to writing about day four now. Better late than never, eh?

So, if you’ll recall (which I don’t imagine you will because I scarcely do) we were at Baskerville Hall, setting of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, a book that I have never read but have seen the Wishbone episode of. Anyhow, I managed to wake up early enough on Sunday (for Sunday it was) to catch the tail end of breakfast. It was only after I sat down that I realized there is quite a good reason why I don’t normally eat breakfast. I’m never actually hungry at that hour of the morning. For that reason, I didn’t so much eat breakfast as stare wistfully at breakfast. Anyhow, it passed the time before we were to get back on the bus.

Our first destination for the day was Hay-on-Wye, which is well known for having the highest amount of bookstores per capita in the country (or something like that). As the horde got of the bus and headed in one direction to overcrowd tiny bookstores in packs, Dan and I headed in the other and found a nice little record store. I looked around a little and eventually snagged Everything Must Go by the Manic Street Preachers for £5, which is an absolute steal. This should sound familiar if you read my Song of the Day blog for “Australia”. After that, we continued down the road until we hit a horse auction where we stopped in out of sheer curiosity. Instantly it reminded me of a county fair. It was really quite charming, yet being possessed neither of sufficient money to buy a horse nor a need for a horse nor the capability of caring for a horse, we continued walking. Eventually, we found some paths that went by a river. After moseying around some, we ferreted out a beautiful little waterfall. Unfortunately, my camera was out of batteries and I neglected to rectify this problem the last time we were in contact with civilization (which is to say, when we were in Cardiff). Thus, I have no pictures of said waterfall. It’s just as well because Dan did take pictures of the waterfall and watching him do so I thought there was a legitimate chance he could fall into the water. In order to get an unobstructed view of the waterfall, Dan had to stand on the edge of a very bare and muddy ridge. It would have been easy for him to slip off and down into the water. I know that only one thought was running through my mind: “I can’t swim, so if he goes down, he’s a goner.” He got a beautiful picture, though. But you’ll have to take my word for it.

After the waterfall, we headed back to the centre of town so that we could grab something for lunch before it was time to once again board the bus. Having accomplished that, it was back on the bus for a ride to Tintern Abbey. Tintern Abbey is a massive and beautiful old abbey founded in 1131 AD. It survives only in fragments mainly because it was pillaged for its stone before any note was taken of the need to preserve such a historical site. It is especially famous because Turner painted it and Wordsworth composed poetry about it. We were left off to amble around for an hour or so, and that’s what we did. There’s not much to tell about it really. The reason you go to such a place is to see if for yourself up close and personal. It’s hard to convey a sense of it in words, and Wordsworth has already done it better than I ever could hope to. Again, I have no pictures of this due to my lack of battery life. Of course, since this is a famous site, a simple google image search will undoubtedly yield plenty of results if you feel the need for such a visual aid.

From there, it was time for a long bus ride back to Cardiff. Tintern Abbey is—if memory serves—quite far into the west of Wales and quite in the middle of nowhere. The most amusing thing about travelling to the Abbey was that we wound around some of the narrowest roads in Wales in our monster coach bus for a good 45-60 minutes only to arrive at the Abbey and see that it is located not far off a main road that has a Best Western, of all things, on it. I have no idea why we had to take the back way in but take it we did. Anyhow, being so far out of the way meant a long ride back to London. Also, London is quite like Chicago in that getting to London’s city limits is one thing, getting to specific spot in London is quite another. That is to say, when we got to London our journey was only ½ done because it still remained to get from outer London to Chelsea on a Sunday evening when everyone returning from holiday was flooding the highway. We arrived at about 7 or 7:30 back to the residence hall and most of the ride was simply spent sleeping/listening to music/hearing Josh, Greg, and Andy babble on about The Essence of War, which is the variant on the classic card game War, which they invented. To their credit, it is quite fun and dramatic although not nearly so strategic as they would like people to believe. Dan made the argument that eventually player skill would become irrelevant once an optimal playing strategy was discovered. Everyone would simply use that strategy and the game would then become essentially random. He was thinking way too far into things. Like War itself, The Essence of War is almost entirely random. I would explain the rules if it seemed worth my time or I could remember them. At any rate, it was something to do. After so many long bus rides, we were all going a little crazy. And that was Wales. I give Wales 9/10 and my heartiest recommendation.

My Computer

It is still not fixed. This is very frustrating. I find it difficult to blame the guy who is fixing it. He has replaced both the inverter and the backlight lamp, each of which he determined to be faulty and it STILL isn't working.

The worst of it is that my roommate Dan has been nice enough to let me use his computer, but he is leaving tomorrow for Paris with his parents, which means that I'll be left completely without internet access for all of 7th week unless my computer gets fixed sometime during it.

They're going to try to replace the cable that provides power to the inverter, but if that does not work he says that it means that it's a fault in the motherboard. Basically, that means that if replacing this cable does not do the trick then I will be without use of my computer for the rest of the program. I know that I've already gone two weeks without it, but I'm really not prepared to go another four.

It's just really annoying and to be honest it sort of drives my blood pressure up, which is not a good thing. I need to stay as relaxed as possible so that I'm in good form for tomorrow, which has already got me nervy enough.

Song of the Day -- Australia by Manic Street Preachers

Today's song (and note that there won't necessarily be a song every day, but hopefully more often than not) is Australia by Manic Street Preachers.

The song was a single from the 1996 album Everything Must Go. There are two stories about this album. One of them is personal and one relates to the context of the song. I'll try to keep both brief.

The first story is how I acquired the album. We were on the fourth day of our Wales trip, which I promise I will eventually get around to blogging about, and we stopped in Hay-On-Wye. Hay-on-Wye is a small town that is mainly known for having a huge population of bookstores. As we got off the bus, most of the group headed towards a couple of bookstores. Now, these stores are SMALL, so when 10 people mob one, it's literally impossible to so much as turn around. For that reason, Dan and I headed in the opposite direction and ended up popping into a small record store. I don't mean record store as a store that sells music, generally. He actually sold mostly records. However, he did have some CDs, which I perused. Finally, I saw something that caught my eye. It was Everything Must Go. I had heard of the Manics before and strongly liked their singles "Your Love Alone is Not Enough" and "Autumnsong" from their recent album, Send Away the Tigers. Also, I had heard that Everything Must Go was their masterpiece. At 5 pounds, it was a steal, so I picked it up.

I wasn't sorry. Top to bottom, it's a fantastic album and "Australia" is just one standout song from an album full of them. Not only that, but I'll always remember it for finding it in that out of the way record store in small-town Wales. Incidentally, the Manic Street Preachers (and I didn't know this at the time) are from Blackwood, Caerphilly in Wales, which is about 25 miles from Hay-on-Wye, so I was practically in their backyard.

The story surrounding the context of the song is that Richey James, who had been the lyricist and guitarist for the band, disappeared after their commercially unsuccessful but critically acclaimed album The Holy Bible. The Holy Bible was noted for its dark musical and lyrical content, which was largely driven by James' fragile mental state. To this day, it reminds undetermined what happened to James (and some maintain hope he is still alive) but it is generally assumed that he committed suicide. The rest of the band, now reduced to a four-piece, was left to finish the album. Bassist Nicky Wire wrote the rest of the songs and finished some that James had started. What results is a fascinating album. It's essentially half written by the suicidal James and half by the grieving Wire, who had lost his close friend and bandmate. Lyrically, it is often startingly bleak and/or angry, but musically it is suprisingly optimistic. They are, by and large, triumphant songs of despair.

"Australia" fits this description perfectly. Written by Wire it is often considered to be a statement of Wire's grief over the loss of his friend and his desire to escape Wales. The concept is that Australia is about as far as one can get from South Wales. The chorus says it all: "I want to fly and run till it hurts/Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia/In Australia". Despite that somewhat depressed sentiment, the music is powerful and quite honestly uplifting.

Sometimes, I just have days where I don't feel like dealing with people, when I don't feel like facing the day. Sometimes, I'm just tired or frustrated or fed up or all of the above. On those times, the chorus of Australia plays in my head, and somehow just by hearing the song it makes things just a little more bearable.

What a TUNE! Here's a youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP390yQ36wY

By the way, this reached #7 on the UK singles chart.