Victory for Kaka, victory for football

I am both delighted and relieved that the ludicrous business of Kaka's proposed nine-figure transfer from AC Milan to Manchester City, and the astronomical wage packet he was reportedly offered, has fallen through.

It is a victory for the safety, even the sanity of the sport on a global level, but even more so it is a victory for the convictions and principles of a humble, quiet young man who scores goals for Jesus and wants to stay close to the people and the place he loves.

In a game so utterly dominated by money and run by an unaccountable group of incomprehensibly wealthy individuals who think it is possible to buy lasting success, every true football fan should be encouraged by the fact that a player of such obviously bankable talent should choose with his heart and not his wallet.

He's not exactly hard up at the San Siro and it may have been the case that the club simply refused to allow him to talk to the Eastland's money men. In any case, he is still a Milan player and the chequebook has been put away.

Will this news result in the toning down of the unsustainable financial movements which exist, in the top echelon of the world's most popular sport, on such a scale as to be truly crass in the face of such international economic turmoil? Almost certainly not.

But it has sent out a message that occasionally, to some people, some things are more important than money.

Inauguration Day

One last moment of inspiration before the hard work really begins. Read the speech.

Free speech gone mad

Before you assume I've come over all Daily Mail, fear not. I do, however, feel compelled to share with the world what is as fine a case as I think I've ever seen against allowing members of the public to post comments in response to news stories on the internet.

The news piece in question reports that a promising young drama student has been selected to front a government campaign aimed at reducing knife crime, self-harm and other such ills among young people.

The comment from 'Manny Mark' in Redbridge which follows isn't so offensive because of what he says – nuggets of cynical, narrow-minded and ill-informed rubbish are ten-a-penny all over the internet – but rather the manner in which he says it, so utterly bankrupt in its means of expression that I actually cast my eyes to the heavens and tutted like a grandmother.

Leave it out and do me a favor do you think this is going to solve the dreadful positions of kids carrying the knives? . What and they are going to pick up the knifes and then remember to log on and listen to two other kids saying dont do it? Just because this crazy governement dont spend any money on police for the streets they use the wishy washy tactics to clould the wool over peoples eyes like a smoke screen to veil off all whats really happing in the society that we are forced to living under the fear and terrible state we are put under by the kids who are out of control these days? We used to get a clip round the ear and when we got home if we got in any bother with police the parents would give you a few more clips also.

The spectacular use of mixed, confused and downright garbled metaphors actually left me speechless. Check out the middle sentence (all 3,000 words of it). Absolute gold.

Go and see Slumdog Millionaire

If you manage only a single trip to the cinema in 2009, the one film guaranteed to lift any lingering gloom or underlying feeling of pessimism about your life or the world around you is Danny Boyle's exceptional Slumdog Millionaire.

In it, the director's vision is so clearly formed that the story, told with what is actually a rather complex narrative, is perfectly observed.

It is a demonstration of Boyle's now, I would argue, fully-realised skill as a filmmaker that in telling a story set against the backdrop of one of the most chaotic cities on Earth he still manages to pick out every last detail, not missing so much as a single beat.

I cannot recall walking out of a cinema with such a wide, unapologetic smile on my face, having wept with joy only seconds before, or feeling more elated at the end of the film in my entire life.

This is a work of art which runs the whole gamut of emotions before ultimately finding an exquisitely beautiful finale. It is the romantic story of a man and a women. It is a a paean to a singular and awe-inspiring city.

And it is, above all, an enduring, uplifting and overwhelmingly convincing testament to the redemptive power of love.

Go and see Slumdog Millionaire.

Ooh, what a bitch

There's something I need to get off my chest. From time to time my job involves subediting news stories derived from the meaningless effluent so-called celebrities (sorry to turn this into a semantic argument, but find me someone who celebrates these people, I defy you) will say in interviews or sign up for just to get a few column inches.

As most of this passes before my eyes it prompts nothing more than a shrug, a disbelieving frown or even the odd, slightly camp, cast of my eyes to the heavens. But sometimes I feel the bile rise up inside me. Here's a selection of some of things I've found myself saying, out loud, this week:

Cheryl Cole on her surprise that Victoria Beckham didn't support her when her she found out her husband was cheating on her or something: "we've had barbecues together."

What I said: "How do you barbeque Diet Coke and cigarettes?"
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Pete Wentz saying that people who sell pictures of their new-born babies to the press are "strange". His child with singer/actress/big pair of tits Ashlee Simpson is named Bronx Mowgli.

What I said: "In which case, what does that make people who name their first-born after New York boroughs and feral monkey-children from popular literature?"
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And finally, my response to Madonna's new advertising campaign for Louis Vuitton, in which she reclines with legs open and knickers on display: "The Sun's likely headline: 'Show us yer Madge'."

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.