Happy New Yizzle

Here's hoping you all have a rum old New Year's Eve and feel remotely adequate the next day.

The honeymoon is well and truly over: WBA 2 - 0 Tottenham

Clearly Spurs have decided that flirting with relegation earlier in the season wasn't enough, and have decided to finally pluck up the courage and ask it out for dinner.

Meanwhile, the turning point of the game seems to have been the red card for Benoit Assou-Ekotto after just over half an hour. Possibly the first time in Premier League history that a player has been dismissed on account of his ridiculous barnet. Expect to see Everton's Marouane Fellaini given his long-overdue marching orders sometime in the near future.

Boxing Day down the Orient

My presence at professional sporting contests represents, to my mind, a curse upon the fortunes of whichever team or individual I would rather see victorious. My first time at White Hart Lane some years ago saw the home side defeated 1-0 to a rather freakish Steve Stone goal for Nottingham Forest and most recently I watched a pretty hopeless San Diego Padres team succumb to a visiting Cleveland Reds side on an otherwise perfect trip to southern California.

The sole victory that I have witnessed in the flesh was in the first leg of the UEFA Cup qualifying round, as Spurs left Prague with a valuable 1-0 win against Sparta. I put this anomaly down to the fact that it took place some thousand or so kilometres away from home and as such my powers were greatly diminished.

But in keeping with the festive season, I made my way with my season ticket-holding uncle to Brisbane Road this afternoon to watch Leyton Orient take on fellow League One relegation fanciers Swindon Town with a spring in my step and no thought of my previous form as a sporting spectator.

Things did not start well. The game was barely 30 seconds old when the Orient defence – possibly still half-cut from the previous day’s festivities – let the ball bobble around their penalty box long enough for Peacock to latch on to it and send it net-wards. ‘Goal’, I thought to myself shortly before the away fans went into raptures, and a goal it was.

Now fully awake, the O’s looked far more lively going forward until half time yet their reluctance to fire so much as a single shot on target was baffling to say the least. The 15 minutes after the interval proceeding much the same, until around the hour mark when a Swindon player committed as clear a handball as would have been seen at any football ground around the country.

The linesman on the near side then rose his flag, without hesitation, and awarded a penalty, before the roof of the stadium actually lifted an inch or two off its supports as around 7,000 people screamed the word “WHAT?!” in perfect unison.

Penalty safely tucked away, the visiting supports were delirious and the home fans incensed and perplexed in equal measure. Over the next ten minutes the offending official was submitted to as vehement a selection of abuse as I have ever heard.

My personal favourite nugget of vitriol was “Oi, silly bollocks!!”. Much of what was said was in this vein – the occasional attempt at a fully-formed sentence or even a rhetorical question tended to trail off before the end as the individual concerned lost interest.

With around ten minutes left on the clock, Orient’s steadily-building pressure paid off and they managed to pull one back, but not before missing a hatful of chances.

In all, I had a fantastic afternoon and would happily spend many more afternoons at Brisbane Road. My curse, I feel confident, will one day be broken.

See the club’s official match report here.

Season's greetings

Eggnog in hand and pheasant readied for the oven, I bid ye all a very Merry Christmas.

Twas the afternoon before Christmas, and everyone was out. Jimmy sat and thought to himself: "Ooh I fancy a stout"

It seems like only yesterday that I sat in my apartment in Whistler and wrote my last Christmas message to my literally three or four readers. Suffice it to say that this last 364 days has absolutely hooned by.

When will I stop bleating on about Whistler and how much I miss it? No time soon, I can assure you.

Just thought I'd share with you something I found online. More room for presents, evidently.

Bad times on Blackcomb mountain

I was taken right back to the base of the mountains today when I read that Tower 3 on the Excalibur gondola from Whistler village up onto Blackcomb had collapsed, leaving more than 50 people stranded for up to several hours.

The local Whistler newsmagazine reported it thus, while the BBC has posted its TV report online here.

Bad times indeed.

Quote of the day...week...maybe month, we'll see

"While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution"

Sage words from the China Daily newspaper, on the news that a 20-year-old Chinese woman lost the hearing in her left ear following a particularly passionate kiss with her boyfriend.

Something I noticed... (Spurs 2 - 0 West Ham)

As I write I'm still basking in the afterglow of watching a hard-fought but thoroughly well-deserved Tottenham victory over the Hammers at a local pub. Fortunately, I'm abstaining from alcohol this week, otherwise I might have missed a little piece of history in the making. For tonight I witnessed what I believe is the first example of a 'common sense substitution'.

Until the 54th minute of tonight's match the rationale behind a substitution had consisted of a fairly well-defined set of reasons. A player might be substituted if he is injured, for example. A player might be in danger of picking up a second booking, and might therefore be replaced in order to avoid being sent off, particularly if he earns a bit more than everyone else and there’s a bit game coming up. Indeed, the player may be having a bit of a shocker, or tired, or being used as a makeweight for a tactical substitution so that his team might change their approach to the game.

A player might be having a blinder, have scored a hat-trick or just contributed a particularly exceptional performance that has put the game beyond doubt, and their removal from the field of play is just an excuse for them to be allowed their own special round of applause from the gathered and grateful.

Then there’s the ‘Juande Ramos special’ substitution, which consists of replacing a perfectly good player simply because you’re at 1-1, there’s 20 minutes left, your strikers couldn’t hit a barn door and you don’t know what else to do. Or the ‘Sven Goran Eriksson', which is bringing on Owen Hargreaves on the right of midfield when you’re 2-1 down with ten minutes to go.

Tonight, Tottenham Hotspur’s Russian striker Roman Pavlyuchenko was, to my mind, a participant in the first ‘common-sense substitution’. The 50-odd minutes he spent on the pitch weren’t particularly lacklustre, nor were they spectacularly good. He didn’t seem particularly fatigued or injured, nor did man who replaced him – Darren Bent – offer a great deal different in the tactical department. Mssrs Ramos and Eriksson were nowhere to be seen.

His departure was greeted, certainly in the pub in which I was sat, with a pause and then a collective reflection of: “Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense”. Ladies and gentlemen: a common-sense substitution.

Post-Whistler Blues - an almost timely update

The significance of the date on Monday almost passed me by. Odd really, seeing as I’d held it in my head as a pseudo-jokey watershed point when I should stop moping and move on like a real grown-up.

On November 24th my Canadian visa expired, and with it the legal technicality that I could return to that country and earn a living without facing the wrath of the authorities. It may not sound like a big deal but I can’t help feeling a pang of regret, to add to the hearty dose of nostalgia I’ve been carrying around ever since I landed at Heathrow back in June.

But as it turned out I’d found myself so busy with work, travelling up and down the country at weekends to see my girlfriend and preparing myself for the prospect of moving out of home that it crept up and then stole past without my notice. Bugger. And to think of all the date-specific wallowing I’d missed out on.

On a serious note, the comedown from returning from Whistler has hit me pretty hard. Strangely, it seems to have combined itself rather cruelly with a delayed reaction from leaving university and moving back home.

By the time I’d finished my exams and left Sheffield for good I felt I was ready and eager to move on, as well as to live at home again at least in the short run. The intervening period between then and moving to Canada for the winter was filled with a pretty decent summer, the chance to earn a few quid and the anticipation of a life-changing experience to come.

In effect, I hadn’t had a chance to stop and think about how much I missed university. Now I do, I find myself pining for both student life and the existence of a ski bum. But my visa has expired and that, I’m afraid to say, is that.

To sum up: more Whistler = a serious cash injection + some time spent reacquainting myself with the real world + another visa.

So with that, on the poignant occasion of my 100th blog post I must withdraw my gaze from my naval and stop trying to re-live the past. As if I didn’t know that already.

A tiny little bit of solace...

Tonight I finally saw the new Bond film and, after having read numerous critics express their opinions that it wasn't really a Bond film or that it had removed what made the series so loved, I can say with some confidence that much of what has been written about this release so far is utter bollocks.

Quantum of Solace is absolutely what the franchise needed. After several lacklustre outings, the villains growing ever more cartoon-like and the threats to world peace ever more preposterous, change was overdue to correct a serious loss of direction and focus.

Casino Royale was unmistakably Bond, and yet it was so much more. It’s follow up expands on this and, although the impact of the novelty factor has worn off to some extent there is still so much to enjoy, new and old.

Picking up where, literally as well as narratively, the previous film had left off QoS sees Daniel Craig continues to flesh out the human character behind the licence to kill, James Bond as opposed to 007. The increasingly complex relationship between the two is the film's central conceit and this, balanced against superb action sequences so up-to-date they make what has gone before look almost prosaic, works brilliantly.

James Bond is, as Maurice Greene puts it, "damaged goods" (making the attempt at a more humanised character in Die Another Day seem fairly flimsy in comparison) and this makes him more riveting and engrossing than ever. This is new Bond, with plenty of familiar and welcome hallmarks - not least Dame Judy Dench's excellent M - ably playing their parts.

Craig's Bond and the world he inhabits continues to reinvigorate one of the greatest mythologies in cinema and has managed to tick all the desired boxes and simultaneously subvert a whole raft of thematic and aesthetic expectations at the same time. For my money, a remarkably canny and rather accomplished piece of work.

Spurs 4 - 2 Liverpool

The renaissance continues! And the best part? The players all seem to be taking it in their stride. Warm smiles all round indicate that they're rightfully enjoying their current run of form but their demeanour suggests they remain ever mindful of their position in the Premier League table and the importance of maintaining momentum.

Still, cracking result…

History in the making

Read the speech

Victory

So much has and will continue to be written about what the results of today's US presidential election will mean for the world. Column inches are already fit to burst with analysis on how an African-American came to be the most powerful man in the world. Pundits have talked themselves hoarse with predictions about the monumental challenges President Obama will face.

I awoke this morning, tense from the instant my eyes opened. I had just had a bad dream, the most vivd for as long as I can remember. I went downstairs and turned on the television to find that John McCain had triumphed in the election. But the television pictures were indistinct and I turned to the figure to my side. "What's happened?" I asked. "What do you think?" came the resigned, defeated reply.

When I actually woke up and went downstairs, I had already recovered my sense of certainty about what had occurred overnight. When I actually turned on the television I saw that the result had, in fact, been a landslide. And it was with a lump in my throat that I read of stories of ordinary Americans making their voices heard - those who had voted for the first time in their lives, or queued up since dawn to cast their ballot, or had changed their long-held political allegiances as they sensed that they too could play their part in this indelible moment in history.

I don't feel there's much I can add to what has been the most heavily-covered, not to mention most expensive election in history, save this one thought. From this day forward the world should be optimistic. And America should be extremely proud.

Tottenham Hotspur Astonishment Watch 2 - The North London Derby

Never dull, is it?

Tottenham Hotspur's Premier League season became that bit more incredible tonight as they drew 4-4 at the Emirates Stadium.

It began with a 43-yard screamer from David Bentley, a player seeming transformed in terms of his confidence within a few days of the managerial change at White Hart Lane, and ended with Aaron Lennon's cat-like reflexes bagging his first goal of the year, Arsenal fans silenced in their droves and what was unthinkable only a week ago - a point away from home against a free-flowing Arsenal side - a reality.

I'm no neutral, but even I managed to enjoy the spectacle of the match, one of the most exciting and competitive North London derbies I've ever seen.

While shipping four goals is concerning, the defensive frailties can and will be worked on and considering the opposition it’s far from a disgrace. Managing to score four times against a team with such an ability to retain the ball, given our form before the match, is very encouraging, not least because two of thethe strikes came in such spectacular fashion.

But perhaps the most significant factor in all of this is that the players never threatened to give in and simply refused to capitulate. It is this kind of resilience which has been so sadly lacking since the start of the campaign and is surely the stepping stone towards achieving the most pressing objective for the club: survival in the top flight.

To sum up... (or, Tottenham Hotspur Astonishment Watch)

I think my head has now stopped spinning as a result of the last 24 hours in the world of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. I became aware of developments at the Lane late last night when I turned on Sky Sports News to find that, not only had Juande Ramos, his two assistants and sporting director Damien Comolli all been sacked but 'Arry Redknapp had been appointed as the new manager.

He was already on the phone to the channel telling them how much money he'd cost his new employers. Something tells this is one they'd had in the pipeline for the while...

By far the biggest cheer I gave all weekend was at the news that Comolli would not be replaced, signalling a return to the traditional style of management, no longer dividing what most proper football fans will tell you are the indivisible tasks of managing player movement and coaching the team. Halle-bloody-lujah. As the BBC's Phil McNulty put it: "out with the new and in with the old".

This underlines just how significant a factor the presence of a sporting director was in the club's abject failure so far this season and I can only hope that, for the good of the game in this country, this isn't the last time we hear of a 'head coach' becoming a 'manager' as clubs move back to the way of running a football team that seemed to have worked perfectly well for a good century or more.

It would be churlish to suggest that Daniel Levy’s decision to hold out for the best price for Dimitar Berbatov was a bad one, but in squeezing an extra £5million out of Manchester United he put the club in jeopardy of losing so much more. Berbatov’s departure was, in truth, the tip of the iceberg but it does demonstrate a crucial failure in the money men’s very relationship to what happens on the pitch.

Hopefully it won’t mean Harry Redknapp will be the recipient of pressure from the board because at least a sporting director, in removing responsibility for transfers from the manager, meant that head coaches weren’t subject to bullying from the chairman with an eye on the bottom line. Then again, not allowing the man picking the team to have the biggest say in who is and isn’t in the squad means that clubs can find themselves with shirt numbers to allocate, cash to spend and a general air of panic about how to replace the team’s very heart, as happened with Spurs at the start of this campaign. The faith that must now be shown in Harry Redknapp is crucial.

Pavlyuchenko is a good player, as are Darren Bent and Frazier Campbell. They are not, however, Dimitar Berbatov or Robbie Keane. £50million is a lot of money, but given only a few days or even hours to spend it leads to rash decisions and is not conducive to developing a well-balanced side.

Ramos made some bad choices, that much is undeniable. Poor selection, too much rotation and endless tinkering with the formation unsettled the entire side so much that they have looked like a pub team for large periods of the season. The players must take some of the blame, but the effect that confidence in their coach and the integrity of the people responsible for hiring and firing them should not be underestimated.

While it’s too soon to judge, Tottenham recorded their first Premier League win this afternoon against Bolton. Clive Allen and Alex Inglethorpe were officially in charge, but Mr Redknapp spoke volumes when he said liked to think he had something to do with today’s 2-0 overhaul.

I remain tentative about the future, yet cautiously optimistic that the board appears to have made a very good, if overdue decision.

The first ever black President of the United States

At work yesterday afternoon I was writing the last story for one of my news feeds, about an online video series that has been spoofing the weekly developments in the US presidential race, when I had what can only be described as an epiphany.

It came as I wrote a short contextual paragraph at the end of the piece, something I had put into words seemingly countless times before, when I found myself stopping what I was doing to stare at what I had just written.

"On November 4th the United States will go to the polls in a historic election which could see the first ever black president of the United States."

Those last eight words really stopped me in my tracks.

I thought for a moment about what they meant. The simple, core statement of fact behind them I had written, said and heard in one form or another probably a thousand times ever since Barack Obama decided to stand for the Democratic nomination, not least since he defeated Hilary Clinton and was declared the chosen candidate.

But at about 2.55 on Friday afternoon was the perhaps first time I really had some sense of what they meant. I found myself struck by prospect of what they might mean for America and, as a Briton, for the entire world.

At the heart of it, I think, is that it will show how much America has grown. For all that might be said about a vote for Obama being as much a one for the man himself as it is a vote against eight years of what has become deeply unpopular, almost catastrophic Republican governance, Barack Obama becoming the first black president in American history would be something to be cherished.

If it happens (and I, like many others, hope and almost expect it to) then I shall be glad to be alive to see it. Just as I am thankful that I have never had to suffer the indignity of being considered by great swathes of people, certain laws and, at one time, a national government that I am an inferior being because of the colour of my skin.

I don't pretend to feel empathy with any victim of persecution as I have never been on the receiving end of such a thing, and having never been an American citizen I am not as aware as I might be of the scale of racism and prejudice that sears through American history from its beginnings as a independent nation to the present day.

In light of the obvious scale of sentiment against Barack Obama and black people in general alive and well in America, the fact the country may well be about to elect a black man to run it from the White House seems remarkable, brilliant and astonishing to me.

It would be easy to explain away this piece of history in the making. John McCain is not necessarily a strong enough challenger to the skilled, principled oration of Barack Obama. His choice of running mate was, to many people, a cheap trick which while pleasing a select few has seen many more alienated and further distanced from his message. The legacy of the outgoing president, one of the most unpopular in history, has seen to it than the Democrats were a virtual shoo-in for the Oval Office this November.

All of these things and more may well be true. But the fact remains that a country which once enshrined slavery of the black races in its very laws is on the verge of putting a 'person of colour' into the most powerful job in the world.

I think yesterday I gained a sense of just what that might mean.

Tottenham Hotspur Bullshit Watch - it could become an ongoing series...

After last night's woeful display in Italy, my attention is drawn even further to the kind of rubbish that is currently coming out Spurs players' mouths to go along with the rubbish they're shipping out on the pitch.

Today, my thanks go to first-choice central defender and possibly our most consistent player Jonathan Woodgate for the following slices of fried gold. That's right, not just one but several little gems to share with the world.

On the BBC Sport website today, Mr Woodgate said the players were "one million per cent" in a relegation battle. What, pray, could have prompted this revelatory statement? Was it the fact that in the history of the Premier League only one side has managed to survive the drop with this few points at this stage in the season (Southampton in 98/99, trivia fans)? Who knows, but wait, he isn't finished.

"People say we are too good to go down but we aren't. I've seen it happen at Leeds and they had a better team than we do here". Firstly, no they don't: it's hard to pin down exactly, but my bet is that sometime around 4:45 on Saturday afternon, as the final whistle blew and with that they slumped to a 2-1 defeat to Stoke, people stopped saying Spurs are too good to go down.

Secondly, ten out of ten for the assertion that we aren't as good as the Leeds team that were relegated a few years back. As a fan, I don't know what to take issue with first: a key player, in effect, talking down the squad or the implication that he doesn't much fancy our chances.

It seems that, such is the sheer extent of the mire in which we find ourselves that, unbelievably, our team has actually run out of platitudes and cliches and has now been forced to talk outright nonsense.

Watch this space for more updates on the lengths to which Tottenham players are able to expell hot air in the national media

I remain a faithful Spur and I love my team but this is really trying my patience. I'm on the verge of resigning myself to the fact that next year we will be playing Championship football. And that, sports fans, is what really hurts.

The big match

I write this sat in front of the television, minutes away from Tottenham's UEFA cup tie against Udinese, all the while ruminating David Bentley's stunning assessment, printed in the sports section of the Guardian this morning, that so far this season has been "a bit shit".

Far from questioning such a towering philosophical figure in this otherwise plebian game, I wonder if the utterance of such a damning critique might put the figurative boot up the players' collective arse and force a decent performance out of somewhere. Here's hoping.

Is this the best they can do?

This weekend I saw BBC Switch for the first time. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it's a new 'youth' TV brand on BBC2 on Saturday afternoons, alongside the odd show on Radio 1. Think of it as like T4 but funded by licence-payers money. Or rather, think of it as slightly like T4, but without being entertaining.

Admittedly, at 23 I am a few years older than its target demographic and this might be behind my not getting it.

For example, one of the shows on offer, Fresh, documents the escapades of a bunch of university first-years during their first few days at university away from their overbearing, controlling 'rents. Pondering this show I had to remind myself, to my horror, that the label of 'fresher' applied to me no more recently than 4 years ago, which made me feel quite old and deeply out of touch.

The show could be taken as either an enticement to bettering yourself through tertiary education or a cautionary tale about what you might have to endure - and consume - during university, depending on your constitution.

So far, so ambivalent. Then, then Switch went all Robert Kilroy Silk with open debate show The Surgery. Discussion programmes featuring young people are nothing new. But while I can tolerate the occasional, slightly cringey editions of Question Time where the audience is given over to an intelligent, ponderous bunch of late teenagers, this show went too far.

To summarise, it started badly, before getting consummately worse. While I'm all for covering a wide sweep of society, I found myself wondering if there wasn't some way that the BBC could have vetted the contributors for at least a basic grasp of the English language.

If I had counted the amount of times one audience member used the word "like" in expressing his view, I would have probably had run out of fingers and had to take my socks off to start using my toes. Fortunately the host, in a deft and charitable move, interrupted and uttered something of the lines of: "So, you're saying we’re living in a real melting pot?"

That alone was enough, and I turned off the television. I wondered if the presenter had never seen The Office and therefore not realised that the term 'melting point' is now officially off limits. For good.

More than anything, I was struck by how badly wrong the people overseeing BBC Switch seem to have gone. Young people aren’t all inarticulate yobs who spend their time binge drinking and walking around with the arses hanging out the back of their jeans.

While this may describe the majority (I jest), even the most cynical mind might admit that the efficacy of seeing such people supposedly ‘representing’ their age group would be greatly improved if: a) a half-way intelligent counterpoint were present, in the form of someone who appeared to have completed their secondary education without a brush with the law; and b) the presenter hadn't so readily fallen into speaking in platitudes and clichés to appease the studio audience.

In mentioning Radio 1 and T4, two of the best examples of how to do this kind of broadcasting only serve to highlight in relief Switch’s lack of quality. T4 aims itself at a similar age range and manages to be funny, accessible and not in the least bit patronising all at the same time.

Radio 1 has an even broader demographic and provides news which only occasionally sounds like a spiced up version of Newsround (which is hardly surprising, mindful as it is of its being listened to by a fairly large number of young teenagers). Yet it relies on some solid content, which is the quality of its music. Switch doesn’t have that, but something tells me that this is more than a scheduling issue. To justify its own existence it can’t rely on imports. Instead, it has to do what the BBC is renowned for doing, namely commissioning and producing original programming.

At the moment, the problem seems to be one of approac: not to making youth-specific programming but rather its desire to do such a thing in the first place. I would argue such a specific bracket in society doesn’t actually need its own cross-media brand. It has E4, Radio 1 and a whole raft of things on television and the internet that, while not necessarily made specifically for it, it finds very appealing nonetheless.

On reflection, it seems that BBC Switch is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.

My appaling attitude to writing regular blog posts

I'm in no doubt that my slackness in writing anything on here for weeks at a time is a symptom of my new job.

For the last four weeks I've been working for a small news agency in Docklands, doing something that vaguely resembles journalism in return for cash, as is the fashion. As enjoyable as the job is I'm a bit concerned with how much money I see drop into my bank account each month, and given that I want to move out sometime in the new year while attempting to save up enough to travel the world some more (my recent winter sojourn to Canada and the US having only whetted my appetite rather than got anything out of my system), I feel impelled to keep looking for something a little better paid.

What my job also means is that I sit at a keyboard for eight hours a day and so, by the time I get home, I can think of very few things I'd like to do less than write.

But I think I'm adjusting. Slowly. I will make more of an effort in future, I promise.

Post-Whistler Blues

A few days ago I was looking at the Facebook page of a friend I had met while spending last winter in Whistler and I noticed he had changed his status, the crux of which was that his Canadian visa had expired, marking exactly one year since he left the country to start the ski season. The note of sadness, present even in such a short missive, was palpable. And with that, it was confirmed: someone else was suffering the Post-Whistler Blues.

I've found myself caught in a mood of longing and nostalgia over the last month or so, something which is not unknown to me by any means, but has been heightened recently due to a couple of factors. After leaving university last June I hardly had time to let my feet touch the ground, as I made a brief return to Sheffield for graduation week before embarking on what turned out to be a short-lived and utterly vain attempt to make some money developing property, back when there was a housing market to speak of (ah, those were the days...).

By this time our plans to spend the winter working in Canada were already in motion. Our interviews took place in July; by the middle of August we - to our utter delight - had been given the ok, had booked our flights, and had already begun getting to know some of our fellow seasonnaires in earnest. By the time September came around the paperwork was mostly in order and we had attended a fairly well-lubricated departure party. I remember looking around the office at everyone present, each looking slightly more giddy with excitement and anticipation than the last at what the next nine months would hold.

The season itself (and this may be just the misty haze of nostalgia obscuring my vision again) was a fantastic experience. Being freezing most of the time was only occasionally tolerable. Being broke was downright shit. But I would not have swapped it for anything in the world. Spending five weeks travelling down the American west coast was everything I had hoped for and much, much more. We returned at the start of June, beginning a relative flurry of events that kept the wolf from the door, disappointment-wise. I did a week's work experience at Empire (brilliant); then my birthday and the attendant festivities came around; then I secured a place on an NCTJ journalism course; then I got some temporary work to keep me in curry and beer at the weekend; then I went on holiday to Barcelona; then I started my new job, which is the first consistent bit of paid writing I've ever done.

And so, about four or five weeks ago, it hit me. I noticed the weather had begun to draw in and not only did I miss being in Whistler I also found a greater-than-expected longing for university because I hadn't really been able to feel that way when I left more than a year ago. It had all come at once. While my visa still has until the end of November to run the point it hardly seems the point, and the process of coming back down to earth after the experience has been tough, the transition difficult.

My girlfriend of three and a half years and I have gone, once again, from living in each others pockets to being more than a hundred miles, several hours and about thirty quid away from one another. My burgeoning career in journalism feels like it’s at a hiatus. The nationals are not exactly knocking down my door. I mean, where are you? Do you not read this thing? Clearly not.

Ok then, morose semi-rant over. I'm fine, honestly. Positivity only from now on.

The times they are a-changing

As you may well have noticed, Jimmy's Desk has a new look. It's green. It's also a heck of a lot lighter and brighter than its previous dark grey, bespotted incarnation. Hope you like it.

In fact (brainwave) let me know what you think by commenting on this post. I understand this is opening myself up to ridicule because now no-one will write anything and the fact that no sod actually reads this thing other my mother will be known to everyone. Just a risk i'll have to take, I suppose.

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club

Exactly what is going on? It's now so far beyond a joke I just don't know what to think.

Homage to Catalonia - part 4

Back in the city, on our last day around town before flying home we revisited my favourite aspect of Barcelona from our last visit together three years before - Park Guell. As testament to my now well-developed obsession with the work of Antoni Gaudi, we visited his unique urban concept: inspired by a certain style of gardens in England (hence the Anglicised 'k' in 'park', as opposed to a Catalan 'c'), he recreated one in his own vision, where palm trees sit beside unmistakable tiling and ceramic work.

Before we'd even reached the park, I noticed something else which caught my eye. For a split second it occured to me that it was some kind of public art, before realising something a bit more militant was at work.
I mentioned to my girlfriend that the Catalan people specifically, and the Spanish is general, weren't afraid to deface or even set fire to stuff they didn't like, that was affected or lessening their standard of life (this observation I made with more than just a hint or admiration). Of course, my companion put it pretty straightly: "Well," she said, "if you fight for your freedom in your own country, you aren't going to think twice about splattering something in paint". Quite right. I can't read Catalan, but I think it says something about the apartment building spoiling their views...

The park sits almost on top of el Carmel hill, a steep escalator ride up to the top which did provide some rather unique views.
Although they were nothing compared to what you might see when you actually reach the park.
And as if I needed to be convinced any more of the national willingness to nail their political colours firmly to the mast, here was further proof.Dotted around the park are a number of small buildings, the purpose of most of which I don't know, but they I still enjoy them all the same.
The centrepiece of the park is this large, open, parade ground-like area, the far edge of which lined with benches of smooth, brightly colour ceramics and mosaics.By the way, did I mention the views? As with the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's fusion of natural forms and the raw physical logistics of construction and structure is evident here. In case you can't see her, my missus is peeping out from behind one of the pillars, the wave pattern arrangement of which I always stop to take in a while. On the way out, the park has more beautiful, vibrant ceramic work in the shape of fountains, and one particularly popular dragon. Catalonia, and more specifically Barcelona, is a unique place that you have to visit. Don't just take my word for it.

Homage to Catalonia - part 3

After a few days spent meandering the charming streets of the city, that familiar look in my girlfriend's eye told me she was itching to get to the beach. And so we drove, about 2 hours up the coast towards the French boarder, to Roses (pronounced 'ross-us', with or without a rolled 'r', depending on your preference).

The town is a charming seaside resort, clearly geared for tourists but the crucial difference is that tourists are largely Spanish, with the odd German or French family for good measure. Very few Brits, is what I'm getting at, and I found it refreshing. The family flat we stayed sits about half way the Western most hill, overlooking the town with a sweeping, inobstructed view of the bay, the village, and the first foothills of the Pyrenees looming in the background. The view at sunset was just breathtaking.

And the view at night wasn't bad either.
The town itself has plenty of good restaurants, and plenty of good enough repute for us to be unlucky trying to obtain a table on a Saturday night without booking first. The town is also within a stone's throw of the legendary El Bulli restaurant, one of the few eateries with three Michelin stars in the world, let alone in this part of Spain. It has been voted 'The Best Restaurant in the World' four times since 2000 - this is the standard we're talking here. Needless to say we decided the credit card wouldn't stretch to even bread and oils, and dined elsewhere.

What really stood out for me was the genius of having a miniature golf course on the seafront, which is open until after midnight, with a Belgian beer bar attached for good measure.

Unfortunately the time of year meant the weather, while sometimes pefectly amenable to sunbathing, occasionally turned for the worst. But while my girlfriend has grown used to the view over the years of visiting with her family, I still found myself drawn to the balcony, looking out across the bay. As I said, breathtaking.

Homage to Catalonia - part 2

Dominating the Barcelona skyline. soaring into the sky above the roofs and terraces of what is an otherwise fairly low-rise city, sits Gaudi's most famous (unfinished) opus: the Sagrada Familia. The temple dominated the last 15 years of the architect's life, following a previous 25 years of toil, and standing outside looking skywards you can understand what a labour of love this huge edifice would have been.

The level of detail is quite exceptional, more so on the outside (which is, ostensibly at least, rather more complete than the interior) and the audio we procured before starting our tour gives an informative narrative on what you're peering up at.

The imposing bronze doors bear rows and rows of scripture, with the occasional detail picked out in gold.

Inside the church, the sheer height of the vaults is the most striking feature. That, and the building work going on down at sea-level. The audio tour includes comments from the current architects who are working on the project, and who have contributed to the exterior. Whatever controversy greets each new stage of construction and the pangs of indignation even an architectural layman like me might feel at someone other than Gaudi himself working on the building, the encumbents seem to know their stuff. If the outside is anything to go by, then the inside is in safe hands.Gaudi was influenced by natural forms throughout his career and in the Sagrada Familia these are as evident as ever. The entire structure is shot through with shapes resembling flowers; botanical shapes inform the pillars which soar up to support the roof.

Homage to Catalonia - part 1

Such is the British obsession with Spain as a package holiday destination, it is all too easy to forget that is a rich and vibrant country with much to offer those who would rather stay at home in rainy Suburbia with a dose of the flu than visit one destinations favoured by so many of their countrymen/women each summer.

Barcelona is a fabulously cosmopolitan city, alive with colour and energy in its nightlife, food and architecture. It's Mediterranean climate drenches it in sunshine and consistently high temperatures for most of the year and its people are proud of their heritage - counting themselves as Catalan first and Spanish second (or, in some cases, not at all). All of this makes the area feel singular, different. Catalonian culture and language mark it out as distinct from the rest of the country.

Our base was my girlfriend's grandfather's house in Colonia Guell, a village about a half an hour away from Barcelona proper but a world away from the hustle and indeed the bustle of the city, its position on the end of a metro line belying how restful it feels in comparison.

Such is the way in countries like Spain, the relatively simple-looking exterior of the house hides a beautiful, unmistakably Mediterranean interior and garden. Below the large deciduous tree is a small pond, home to a number of wee turtles who pop up for a feed whenever you chuck thin slices of chorizo into the water. Or they might be tortoises, I can never tell the difference.The village was founded by Eusebi Guell, most proflific patron of Catalan national treasure Antoni Gaudi. Its also home to a stunning church of the same name, which some say it is his great unfinished masterpiece, and has attracted controversy in recent years after additions were made. Barcelona's cultural powers-that-be are no strangers to controversy, but more of that later. No pictures of that, sadly, but there isn't always enough time...

The city has an abundance of beautiful squares in which to sit and while away and afternoon, cafe solo in hand. Below is the view of the cathderal, just a few streets away from the busy shopping area around La Rambla.

Gaudi's touch isn't just present on a large scale. His work crops up in some of the smaller, low-key elements of the city's landscape, like the lamp-posts in the square below.In contrast to the historical flavour of much of the city, down by the port is a huge new complex of shops and restaurants. It's set at the end of a wide pier, which takes you from the Barcelona of old to the Barcelona of now, but the feeling is one of sympathetic juxtaposition, rather than stark contrast.More soon.