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Webb Ellis must be turning in his grave

A thought occurred to me as I read a multitude of articles exhorting England and the English public to remain gracious hosts of the Rugby World Cup, despite becoming the first hosts in history to bow out at the first stage and the thought was this. William Webb Ellis, Englishman and purported inventor of rugby when he caught a ball and ran with it during a game of football, must be turning in his grave to see current events. 

No, not because of England’s failure, their outright capitulation to successive defeats and elimination, but because of their meek surrender to convention. You see Ellis would not have stood idly by and accepted the defeats. As he showed in his infamous football days, he was not averse to changing the rules abruptly and when it suited him, and it is in this sense that England have failed entirely.

We are the host nation, every team and supporter at the Rugby World Cup is at the mercy of our behaviour, so I say this. Why did we miss a trick to embrace rugby’s glorious heritage and simply change the rules ad hoc and to suit ourselves?

Pushed us into touch did you Wales? You do know that the try line moves 90 degrees in the last 5 minutes don’t you? You’ve just pushed us over the line for a game-winning try!

Crossed the line with ball in hand and touched it down did you Bernard Foley? Oh bad form, of course you must realise that by scoring your second try at that precise moment you cancelled out your first one AND volunteered yourself for the Sin Bin don’t you?

And 33 points for Australia? EXACTLY 33? Goodness me, if it’d been 32 or 34 then the result might have stood, but we’re playing on the 3rd October, any fool knows that to replicate the day of the month twice in your score automatically forfeits the game!

And thus, our nation’s most torrid appearance at the Rugby World Cup becomes our finest hour, cruising into the Quarter-Finals as Pool winners, and with a multitude more new rules up our sleeves in case the dastardly All Blacks or Springboks tried anything fishy, England’s boys of 2015 carried ‘home’ on the back of the example set by the pioneer of the game, Mr Webb Ellis himself!

You see, ole Will wasn’t one to sit idly by and accept the cards (or balls) life threw (or kicked) at him. Oh no, he was a forward thinker (not a forward-passer) and he gloriously refused to allow such trivialities as ‘rules’ to get in his way. Just think, if England really were to follow his example, we’d probably have taken our ball home and called the whole thing after being unceremoniously dumped out at the first hurdle. 

So I say this England, do NOT behave with grace and honesty, do NOT celebrate failure and embrace other team’s success, NO, change the rules to suit yourselves and then wallow in acclaim and glory for 150 years, it’s what the founder would have wanted!

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Klopp a load of these quotes

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, OR watching hour upon hour of world class rugby, you’ll be vaguely aware of the unveiling of the new Liverpool manager and the ensuing reams of newspaper coverage.

The new man came across quite wonderfully and provided all sorts of fabulous quotes, immediately in tune with the kind of utterances Liverpool fans want to hear from their manager. These are the quotes that really caught my eye and filled me with hope and excitement. (I don’t get out much)

“The only thing I need is players that want to help the team. They have to listen to what I say.

“That is very important because I believe it is better to have 11 players do the same thing wrong than everybody doing what they want. We have to do it one way and that is my way.”

[Asked whether Liverpool could attract a player of the calibre of Marco Reus without Champions League football, having failed to entice several targets during Rodgers’ reign] Klopp replied: 

“I absolutely don’t care about this. If we cannot sign a player like him then we are not interested in him. We will have to take other players. The whole world plays football, there are players everywhere.”

““It is only here that money is such a big thing. It is money, money, money. OK, there is much money. You don’t have to spend all the money. You can hold it and make something else.”

(This next one is important!)

“You have to fight for it, not just talk about it. You don’t have to speak always.”

“You have to look at which players are reachable and not dream of this player or that player and then say: ‘But they don’t want to come to Liverpool.’ If a player doesn’t want to come to Liverpool then stay away. Really. If you think about the weather, stay away. If you think about other things, stay away. If you want to come here, you are welcome.”

“We need to be closer with all the staff, the fans. It is important they don’t think: ‘These are the good-paid guys, we are the fans.’”

“I don’t want to tackle too rough but if there is a tackle that is legal, a good tackle that gets the ball, it’s like a goal, if you want? Yeeaaah! [punches air]”

AND, the quote to end all quotes:

“it’s not so important what they think when you come in, it’s much more important what people think when you leave”

So there you have it, the man, Jürgen Klopp, in his own words, and interesting words they were. Confidence, hard work and staying humble, as well as being proud of who Liverpool are, and writing off those who don’t buy into it. For too long Liverpool have chased and reacted and been snubbed. Like a welcome breath of fresh air, Klopp has come in and changed that, how lovely.

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Ben’s Brief Book Reviews - Episode 17, Blink

I read some more Malcolm Gladwell, it’s my comfort blanket. He’s the author I retreat to when I want something engaging, fascinating but so easy to read that the pages turn almost without you realising and then all of a sudden you’re finished. I’d finished Moby Dick, in good time and without any great spouts of boredom, but even so, it was dense and dry, I wanted and needed something just like Blink, it didn’t disappoint.

Blink is about split-second decisions, reasonings and thoughts. In it Gladwell provides numerous fabulous examples of our brains making immediate snap judgements, then he analyses it. Blink is about that moment when you just know something, when you notice something isn’t right even though you can’t put your finger on it, when your brain bypasses your consciousness as too slow and just does the job itself.

Amongst subjects he covers are subconscious racism, instinctive reading of people’s facial expressions (and the extraordinary lengths to which two men went to exhaustively research them), Pepsi vs Cola, art fraud and police training. Not a chapter went by that didn’t elucidate me on one thing or another, I have dinner party conversation for years as a result (just need dinner party companions now). Even the most seemingly humdrum topics are brought to life and you find yourself compulsively devouring pages to follow each subject to its conclusion.

Needless to say, it’s riveting. As ever with Gladwell, the most mundane or dry research topics come to life when presented in his simple, tight, conversational prose. It’s a treat to read. He provides endless tales of amazing research, with incredible results, and consequences.

Honestly I can’t recommend this author enough. If you haven’t come across him yet, search him out, read his work, any of it, I guarantee you’ll be hooked in minutes.

I have one Gladwell book left, one book he’s written that I haven’t read, I’m considering saving it until I’m desperate or can’t wait any longer. I simply can’t bear the thought of having read every book he’s published. If you read some of his work you’ll feel my pain, if you haven’t then I envy you, all of this awaits you, enjoy it.

In fact, here, use this link and buy the book, I promise you won’t regret it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0141014598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444305708&sr=8-1&keywords=blink

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The Boss’ Birthday

In honour of Mr Springsteen’s 66th birthday, allow me to share with you my musings surrounding the Boss, a legend, icon and all-round top Gent by all accounts.

I’ve seen him perform once, in Sunderland, at the Stadium of Light. He was on stage for well over three hours of non-stop energy and consumate professionalism. He braved the rain, emerging from the covered stage to stand nearer the crowd and tell us that he loved the rain. He went through all his hits with barely a gap in between, and he made sure everyone acknowledged the entire band, one by one. He was note perfect on the guitar and with his voice, all the while running, jumping, climbing and generally performing all over the enormous stage. He left us all agog as we left, in awe of the man and his many talents.

Two years later I had the chance to see him in New Zealand, but funds dictated I sat this one out. Alice and P+P made it though, and like me, when I picked them up, they were all aglow, basking in the wonder of the Boss’ performance. Even Dad, who isn’t the most music-loving chap, found himself sucked in by the performance and the man, and we had an excellent journey several days later blasting Springsteen whilst we all sang along. 

(During this gig he performed the entire ‘Born in the USA’ album from start to finish, it’s safe to say I was disappointed to miss it) 

Springsteen has also been a staple of almost my entire running career. Whether it’s the rhythm of the songs or their length, something about them makes them perfect for me to run to, and as such I have spent years pounding the pavement accompanied by the gravelly tones of this modern legend, exhorting me to further efforts. As such, any Springsteen song will immediately bring back many happy memories for me, especially the ones that kept me going during the Paris Marathon.

Finally, I’ll finish with my favourite story about Springsteen, which sums up his energy, sense of fun and commitment to his fans. On the same tour I saw him in Sunderland, he performed in Hyde Park. Due to various legal restrictions a curfew was imposed, but Bruce wasn’t finished. He played through the curfew and eventually had to be turned off at the plug mid-song. The next night he played in Dublin and as the show began he began his set at the exact point he’d been cut off the night before. Good fun, good value and the antithesis of a prima donna, Bruce Springsteen is a musical legend. Happy Birthday.

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Woohoo, another set of words, new words, foreign language words.

Full of literal translations and phrases covering situations English just doesn’t have a word for, plus, so much more fun to say.

Enjoy friends. 

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Rodgers and out?

Is time running out for Brendan Rodgers? Headlines following the underwhelming 1-1- draw at home against Norwich would suggest so. Many papers and online outlets used the word ‘pressure’ to describe the situation the manager finds himself in, only 6 games into the Premiership season. It’s easy to see why. 

On the back of a truly dispiriting season in 2014/15, it was imperative for Rodgers that his team bounce back quickly this season. Sadly this is yet to transpire. The team look nervous, ill-acquainted and ponderous. The defensive issues are still apparent and often disastrous. Even worse, the goals that were guaranteed (’We’ll always score one more than you’) in the (barely believable now) title-challenge of the 2013/14 season have dried up. Liverpool have not scored more than once in 18 of their last 20 matches.

Another summer of huge change in the playing staff hasn’t helped. Surely after three full seasons in charge, the squad should be approaching completion with minor changes to be made each year? Admittedly Suarez in ‘14 and Sterling in ‘15 have moved on leaving large gaps, but even so, seven signings in the last summer transfer window (and 10 in the summer before that) does not help a team’s fluidity. These players need games alongside each other to really develop an understanding, and that seems a long way off.

Furthermore, the much-heralded ‘Rodgers-philosophy’ seems to have lost its way with differing selections, systems and styles of play alternating throughout the early days of this season. Does he not know how he wants to play any more? Does he not have the players? (Surely not at this point!) Have past seasons tempered his attacking instincts? 

All signs emanating from Anfield at the moment sadly indicate confusion, radiating from the Manager downwards. Defensive changes and attacking changes weekly suggest someone searching for an answer, and one looks as far away now as it did at Stoke on the last day of last season.

Yet, is jettisoning the manager a good idea? Or a feasible one?

To deal with the second question first, it would seem mighty foolish or short-sighted for FSG to dispense with Rodger’s services now, in the infancy of this campaign, having had the chance to sack him at the start of the summer and give a new manager a change to buy his own players and spend a pre-season with the team. They backed Rodgers after some discussion in July, and then gave him £50million and more to strengthen the team with players he chose. The season is yet young enough to see scope for improvement as the group play together more frequently.

Is it a good idea though? Well yes and no, depending on your point of view. There are those now who are actively campaigning for Rodger’s dismissal, they write the 2nd place of 2014 off as an aberration and point to last season and the start of this as proof that he is not the man to deliver success to Liverpool and best not to waste any more time gaining definitive proof. Yet how much credit does almost guiding the team to the title whilst playing the best football in Europe gain a manager? 18 months? Less? 

Let us not forget that Brendan Rodger’s Liverpool team of 2013/14 swept almost all before them in a series of virtuoso displays between January and May of that season and garnered high praise from non-other than ‘The Best Manager in the World’ (TM) Pep Guardiola. (”They [Liverpool] are playing awesome,”) That team had Liverpool fans in raptures, Brendan was the saviour, and the man to lead us to glory, for ever and ever, amen. How can he have fallen so far?

Were it not for the unemployed status of Jurgen Klopp, I do not believe Rodgers would be under such scrutiny, but with such a high-profile and respected manager available, it’s much easier to contemplate jettisoning the current incumbent. Before we race to do so though, consider this. Were Rodgers to go and Klopp come in (not certain by any means given he has been linked with taking the Bayern Munich job in summer 2016), the entire process would start all over again, from the beginning.

Fans would be counselled to ‘be patient’ whilst the new man ‘implements his ideas’, then we’d have to wait for a transfer window (or two) for him to ‘bring in his own players’, all the while learning the ropes of the Premier League having never coached here. More funds sunk into players, more deadwood cast off, more time for a new squad to gel, and on and on and on.

Brendan Rodgers had us dreaming, and singing, again barely 18 months ago. Hell, he took us to 10 wins and 2 draws out of 12 games in the league between December and March last year and everyone expected us to cruise into the Top 4. We know he supports free-flowing and attacking football and we know he can lead us to wins and extreme runs of form. 

I can’t advocate getting back on the Managerial merry-go-round just yet and sacrificing a year, or two, to allow a new Manager to bed in, without giving Rodgers at least this season to get it right. Let’s hope the media and the pressure doesn’t force FSG into a rash decision.

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Corbyn has, however, confirmed that he will appear at the dispatch box for the first session on Wednesday and he has already asked supporters to crowd-source the questions that he will ask the prime minister. There is also a suggestion that he could provide Cameron with the questions in advance so as to elicit a more reasoned and serious response than the usual Punch-and-Judy display.

The Guardian

The more I hear and read about Jeremy Corbyn, the more I like him. Look at this for example, moving away from grandstanding and showmanship, towards ACTUALLY GETTING STUFF DONE in Parliament without trying to score points. How grown up. 

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Anyone who I have on Facebook will have seen this but just to reiterate, I have a deep and profound love for almost everything that comes from www.http://emilymcdowell.com.

Maybe it’s just exactly my humour, I’m not sure, all I know is that it tickles me and I strongly advise everyone to purchase things from said website with haste.

Especially mugs.

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Places I want to visit... 1. Burning Man

So I created a new segment which I’m going to try to keep weekly, goodness knows I have enough material. 

Each week I want to talk about somewhere that I want to visit. 

Often I don’t know why I want to visit there, or not in any definitive way, places just grab me and capture my imagination and then become fixated on. Hawaii was an example. Before I actually booked flights there I didn’t even know there was more than one island, but boy was I adamant that I had to visit. Don’t know why, can’t pinpoint it.

With this in mind, prepare yourselves for some vague statements about places and things that my febrile imagination has decided to add to an ever-lengthening list, places I want to visit.

Topically, my introductory issue of this segment will focus on Burning Man, a festival in the desert in Nevada.

(Bear with me because a lot of what I’m about to say may be slightly wide of the mark, exaggerated or urban legend, but it all forms my reasons for wanting to go so please don’t disabuse me if I’m talking nonsense.)

I say topically because Burning Man 2015 has just finished, I didn’t realise this when I decided on the segment.

Strangely given what I have stated about often having no definitive event which leads me to fixate on places, Burning Man did in fact have an event, a conversation with a pretentious lady on a Hostel Bar Crawl in San Francisco. She’d just returned and was full of what an ‘experience’ it is and how it blew her mind. I actually ignored her but the topic must’ve stuck in my head because I have returned to it with furthering certainty regularly in the intervening two years.

Burning Man is not a festival in the sense you’ll imagine. For one, it has an enormous sculpture which is set on fire on the last night, hence the name. Their website describes the event as ‘a temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance.’ Basically, loads of people get together in the desert and set up stalls, exhibits and all sorts and THERE ARE NO SHOPS.

This is what drew me to it in the first place, when they say self-reliance they aren’t kidding. You take everything you need for the stay, there is no way of getting anything once you’re there, EXCEPT, from others. People bring items, skills, abilities, whatever they have or want to bring, and they give them to others. One person may take 1000 bottles of water and just dish them out to people. One person may offer foot rubs. Whatever you want to take, you take. But even better, you don’t bargain for these things, you give them, and you take from others. How cool does that sound?

Now I know, this may sound like some people’s idea of hell. And apparently it can be. If you don’t bring things you need, or there’s a dust storm, whatever, it’s isolated and you’re there for the duration. But imagine. Imagine the excitement, the nervousness, the community, one week in the desert with whatever you’ve taken and whatever anyone else wants to give. FUN.

It’s so entirely different from anything else I’ve seen that I jut want to try it. I want the drive to it, across the desert. I want to experience it, I want to see the inferno at the end, it’s UNIQUE.

(One year apparently NASA donated loads of rocket fuel to help the burning man burn, how cool is that?)

I realise it may be full of hippies, I realise everyone may be on drugs or weird or whatever, but I don’t care, I think it would be amazing, and I want to visit it.

Burning Man, you’re on my list. (Doesn’t it just look MENTAL?)

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I really like this clock, it would look lovely on my wall.

The problem is, it costs €995, so that’s not ideal.

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And so, to the final iteration of the photographic updates, or at least until I put my phone photos up.

Tumblr rudely cut my last post off in its prime, limiting me to 10 photos per post, simply not enough for the days and nights we were experiencing!

To set the scene then, our final evening, we returned to the scene of our daytime activity, armed with bottles of beer, bread, cheese and fresh macarons. Timed to perfection (for once!), we arrived at the base of the Eiffel Tower in time to secure a patch of grass with an unencumbered view and settled to watch a beautiful sunset.

The sun went down, the lights went up. The skies were clear, the atmosphere convivial and friendly. Everyone had their own picnic and their own area, no rowdiness or obnoxious behaviour here, just the quiet buzz of hundreds of people talking amongst themselves.

We wondered if the lights would go on all at once when it was dark or if they would fade in, we got our answer as you can see above. The whole scene was perfect and an ideal last night of our trip. Perfectly relaxed, comfortable and with a view you couldn’t take your eyes off.

Eventually the meal was done and the drinks were drunk, we dragged ourselves away, waving goodbye to the Tower which had accompanied every evening of the holiday and back to the hotel to pack.

We rose early enough to enjoy another couple of hours in Paris, taking in the view from the hotel one last time and making a visit to Laduree in order to bring the freshest macarons home. Unbeknownst to us, the route we’d decided on actually showed us some more sights for the last time, the obelisk and the sparkling dome of Les Invalides waving us off, until next time.

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Day Quatre, penultimate day, final full day and a Saturday. There was one major monument (actually two but one MAJOR one) we hadn’t approached despite it dominating the skyline. We’d seen it every single night, today we were to tackle it.

EIFFEL DAY.

We got up and performed our usual ablutions, although in a break from the norm I actually popped out and found a patisserie to provide breakfast whilst Katie showered. Armed with a Pain au Chocolat, a Pain aux Raisins, 10 chouquettes and a Chocolate eclair I returned in buoyant mood!

We took the Metro to Trocadero, reliably informed via Guidebook that this was the greatest way to first approach the famous tower, you may judge for yourselves but it certainly impressed us. Then we joined ‘The Queue’. Now people talk about the queues at the Eiffel Tower and how awful they are, well we queued for less than an hour in the blazing sunshine and we’ arrived at Midday on a Saturday, so possibly they aren’t as bad as made out.

We were however in the queue for the stairs which were a great way to see even more of the views. Climbing up one of the legs of the tower, surrounded by girders and the framework you really do get to see everything this way. We stopped for a breather on Level 1, then another (and an Ice Cream) on Level 2, then queued for 15 minutes to get the lift the rest of the way. Painless.

The sun was splitting the sky, the views were incredible, I think it’s fair to say we made the most of our excursion, we could hardly have seen more of the Tower.

Descending considerably more quickly than we ascended we popped out into the sunshine again in mid-afternoon and immediately made a beeline for the Metro to take us to the Arc de Triomphe, our final real ‘Must-see’ of the trip.

We went, we saw, we decided against queuing again to climb the thing however. Heat, hunger and weariness dictated that we would take it in from the bottom and then hit the infamous Champs, so we meandered around underneath the Arc and then traversed the underpass back to the Champs Elysees, which we wandered down until exhausted (via Laduree for macarons and to commemorate where I started the Marathon from).

Stopping off for our (now) usual meal of this trip, a shared Croque Monsieur followed by a shared Chocolate Crepe, we made our way home to prepare for an enchanting evening...which will follow in another post.

(You thought you might have reached the end of this interminable parade of photos and words, think again!)

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So this looks frighteningly delicious...

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A post shared by Christine Byrne, MPH RD LDN (@christinejbyrne)

This is a grilled cheese sandwich with an over-easy egg cooked INSIDE of it. Basically it’s one truly great food, crammed right in the middle of another.

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Day Three dawned in the City of Light, yet it failed to rouse our slumbering protagonists. Not once but thrice the ‘Snooze’ button was searched for and found. We were late getting up and getting ready, late joining the queue of all queues (except the one for the Eiffel, we’d join that the next day).

Climbing the Notre Dame Towers was our excursion and we’d been warned to get there early, and we did, just not as early as we’d meant to. Regardless, the queue actually moved fairly quickly and regularly and we took it in turns to wander off, I got us a crepe to eat and Katie perused gift shops. In less than an hour we reached the front and entered the domain of Quasimodo, one of the things I had been the most keen to do on this visit.

It lived up to my expectations. The queue outside actually meant that inside was nicely quiet and climbing inside the towers was great. The views were amazing, and then the bells began to ring, how lucky! Not only that, but it turned out that you could then climb further and get to the very top, it was wonderful. We saw the gargoyles, the views (including Monsieur Eiffel’s Tower) and all the intricate stonework, along with several suspicious looking doors which may have housed the Hunchback himself.

Following all this we proceeded to Shakespeare and Co. to purchase some literature (Watership Down and Candide for me) and thence to the Latin Quarter for the official meal of the trip, Croque Monsieur.

Starting at the wonderful Hotel De Ville, we then made our way along Rue de Rivoli and Rue St Honore, the shopping streets of the city. Some wonderful sights on St Honore particularly, along with an excellent cake shop we stopped into. We wound our way to the Place de la Concorde, home to the Paris Ritz, now finalising its 3 year, €200 million refurb, and discovered un petit Laduree outlet and were thus forced into buying several macarons, sacre bleu!

We rested weary feet a while before heading out from the hotel for our date with Miss Lisa, Mona to her friends.

Friday at 8pm turned out to be the ideal time to experience the Louvre for the first time too, no queues to pay and sharing our view of Leonardo’s most famous painting with only a smattering of others. We stayed in the Louvre until the closed around us and herded us out (via one last lingering look at the masterpiece for good measure). What a wonderful time to be inside such a beautiful building, no crowds, and the sun was setting in the courtyard over the famous pyramid visible from the windows, unforgettable.

Finally on this amazing day, we retired to a bar located in the square within the Louvre building for extortionate drinks accompanied by indescribable views. Would Monsieur prefer a view of the Pyramid at night and at close range, or the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance?

Day three was in the books, two of the big beasts of Paris attractions viewed and experienced. Tomorrow would bring us into contact with ‘The Tower’, did we have what it took to climb it? Would be devoured by hordes of tourists?

Join us again to find out...

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I thought Angelina deserved a post of its own, given how lovely and delicious and delightful it is, so here, enjoy the inside, the outside, the hot chocolate and the cake counters at Angelina, opposite the Tuileries Gardens.

So good we went back and bought a cup and saucer to commemorate our time there, tourists.

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Finally in the list of things I failed to capture that we visited on our second day in Paris, here is the view from ‘La Vue’ on the 34th floor of the Hyatt Regency, well worth €26 per cocktail in my opinion.

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Once more, my photos didn’t do it justice, so here is the glorious Les Invalides which house Napoleon’s tomb, on a slightly sunnier day than the one on which we visited it!