Flags and Vuvuzelas

Weeks of build up enabled us to speculate, stress, argue and dream. It's the last one that is the most damaging though. Carried along on a wave of misplaced confidence the flags started appearing about a month ago. After Saturday's performance I wouldn't be surprised if a few have been surreptisiously removed. Some have travelled so far that they are already tatttered and forlorn. It's not difficult to see parallels with the England team each time you drive over a little piece of plastic and cloth on the motorway.

I'm happy for anyone to stick the flag on their car of course. In fact the more Asian cabbies that do it in Bradford the better as far as I'm concerned. My colleague overheard some bloke moaning about 'them' taking 'our' flag the other day so if it's pissing off the Nazis, casual racists or plain old ignoramuses then that's fine by me. Even if I didn't feel a bit uncomfotable with it (as much on 'cool' grounds as anything) I'd still not do it as it seems to invite misfortune on the pitch. I used to stick a scarf out the car window on the way to away games but stopped that when I lost my treasured, childhood scarf on the motorway after opening the wrong window.

On Saturday we got ready for the game and I annoyed the boy and wife (formerly known as girl) by blowing on the vuvuzela I brought back from South Africa- especially loudly after the early goal. I should have known that England could only manage roughly 4 minutes of good play.

It irritates me no end when the 'pundits' discuss pressure being brougfht to bear by broadcasters on FIFA to ban the vuvuzela. You may as well ban the England brass band, giant flags or the army of midwinter shirtless Geordies at St James' Park. All are irritating but they are part of a much stronger fabric than the type used to make the little crosses of St George.

I haven't abandoned my blog

I know it's the end of the footy season though of course the World Cup will preoccupy me until England get knocked out early and come back with their pampered tails between their legs. This, though, is not the reason I have not been blogging. I got married two weeks ago and the lead up and aftermath (I am sure there's a more apposite word) have been busy to say the least. Anyway, I will be back soon. I'm missing my regular catharsis.

phew

Marriage, divorce, bereavement and moving house are supposed to be the most stressful life experiences but I can tell you that watching Spurs last night was more stressful than at least one of those (though maybe I speak too soon). In my usual glass half empty way of thinking I thought that today would be all doom and gloom with City fans popping out of the woodwork and closet Tories secretly smirking to themselves about their likely victory. Suffice to say that I was half wrong (so I reckon that makes my glass 3/4 empty) and a crushing BNP failure and hung parliament may have it close to the top. For those City fans who are inconsolable I am happy to share this story of hope that has backfired miserably. There's always someone who has it worse than you (unless you are actually Kirk Bradley). Sometimes it is wise to see an empty glass.

From Manchester Evening News Aug 17 2009

"OPTIMISTIC Blue Kirk Bradley is so sure of Manchester City's success next season that he's had a tattoo announcing them as Champions League Winners for 2011.
The Premier League season is barely underway but already the 25-year-old is so confident that not only will his team qualify for the Champions League this time round but that they will win it at their first attempt next year. So football-mad Kirk decided to have 'Manchester City 2011 Champions League Winners' permanently tattooed on to his body - even though they only finished 10th last year. And although he admits his prediction is somewhat premature Kirk thinks it's an entirely realistic expectation for big-spending City - who have splashed out £100m on new players this summer. "

OMG Cat

Do it yourself

I wouldn't say I am an avid follower of Westminster based party politics but I always vote even if it amounts to a vote against than a vote for. Tradition, values, convention, decency and other things mean that I will almost certainly vote as I have always done. Of course, it would be daft not to see what everyone else is offering even if it's just an excuse to boil with rage for a bit.

The Nazi BNP are so laughable they don't allow me even that oddly indulgent satisfaction. I taught one of their PPCs about 10 years ago. His obsession with one of his classmates (a British born woman of Bangladeshi heritage) and subsequent humiliation and rejection may go some way to explaining his current tendencies. The (almost certainly mythical) stories about Hitler and a Viennese prostitute come to mind. The fact that he was odious and disliked by pretty much everyone around him may also explain his attraction to the loose grouping of alienated and ill-educated outsiders and losers that the BNP quite clearly are.

I listened to programmes about the Tory manifesto and what struck me was the emphasis they placed on an obligation to community action. It seemed that to all intents and purposes their principle policy was 'we can't do it so vote for us so that you can take on all the donkey work'. Was it not obvious that people would say 'Hang on Dave, I'm bloody busy enough as it is'. I looked on their website just now and it seems that they may even be trying to distance themselves from the prominence they gave this ridiculous notion. Their 6 aims are as follows:

1 Act now on debt to get the economy moving
2 Get Britain working
3. Make Britain the most family friendly country in Europe
4. Back the NHS
5. Raise standards in schools
6. Change politics

In other words(?)
1. do more of what Brown is doing?
2. because we do sod all at the moment
3. to attract more immigrants!
4. rather than promise to dismantle it like....?
5. rather than lower them like....?
6. so we can persuade Clegg to support a coalition?

I have to admit that my irritation with all things Tory is much less than it was in the intolerant class war days of the 80s but when push comes to shove do we really want a privileged, smarmy, pseudo 'one of the lads' populist like Cameron in charge?

I won't be putting any posters in my window. I won't be telling anyone to vote for a particular party. Indeed, I'm not allowed to do that at work. In my free time though I will be telling people not to waste their votes and offer a few more rational reasons why a vote for the Tories is misguided. I don't think I hang around anyone stupid enough to vote BNP so dialiogue isn't necessary there though I could be persuaded to throw stuff if they don their black shirts and march through town.

What the heck is going on?

On Sunday we all had our heads in our hands. The pitch was awful and the ref was worse but you have to be up for it and Spurs just didn't seem to be. Credit to Pompey and I'll be rooting for them on final day. It's hard to believe that with this at the start of the week and my dad seriously ill on Tuesday I could even contemplate saying this is one of the best weeks I can remember. I should say that the most important thing is that my dad is out of hospital and proving he's well on the road to recovery by getting back to his old sweary self. Victories against L'Arse and Chelski though have left me breathless and shocked. Wednesday night was amazing. Today's result even more unbelievable. I'd have taken 2 points from these three games (we have Man U at Old Trafford next week) but this is simply not the Tottenham I know. Gareth Bale ran for 120 mins on the crappy wembley pitch, 90 mins on Wednesday and another 90 today. The elfin features clear hide a terminator like robot body; he's relentless and scaring the crap out of the defences. Gomes has his own set of super powers and if Dawson hasn't proved his worth to Fabio by now then he never will.

In addition to this:

Ledley King was immense on Wednesday
Danny Rose's goal!
The crowd!
see the highlights here
We should have scored 6 today


I still expect Spurs to fluff it when least expected- maybe Bolton will pull off a shock at WHL or Burnley will relax and play free flowing football on the last day of the season. Whatever happens no-one can take the Monday to Saturday part of this week away from us.

The reference list's a ........

I'm marking work at home. We're strict on accuracy of reference lists and the university conventions on referencing (basically how you state where you got your information from). I tend to spend two years correcting it on most students' work until they finally get that it's basically copying a template from the copious verbal and printed examples we give them. For some reason it's one of those things that presses internal panic buttons. I try to empathise by recalling that sick feeling I used to get when the maths teacher at school said the word 'algebra' but when you get the 15th script and the same error is there that you know you corrected in previous work and in a draft for this piece the empathy wanes.

Sometimes people forget to put some items into the reference list at the end. All you need in text is the surname and year. If there are multiple authors you use the first surname and the 'et al.' meaning and others. The reader can then look up the details in a single document at the end. Easy. Easy to miss one out though I suppose. However, how this one was missed is beyond me. For me (Fuchs et al. 1997) stands out as it seems to somehow resonate of the average student's attitude to reference lists themselves.

There is a view that as long as you can identify the source that should be OK and that we're too obsessed with such things. it seems to me though that without our insistence on accuracy and conventions we'd lower the actual bar even further and reference lists would look like this:

References

some books
a bloke I met at the bus stop
the Internet