Shit happens ...

... is by no means a favourite phrase of mine. However, having read today's newspaper i feel compelled to bring this issue up.

Nope, not Labour funding scandal, Bush or even Iraq - which are truly serious issues - but football.

And I do not mean by "shit happening" an own goal by your team's captain, or an equivalent prompting that exclamation from multiple supporters' beer moisturised lips simultaneously.

I mean the real thing.

Liverpool have apologised to Manchester United after it was found that some of their supporters literally threw serious crap on the Man U supporters. They were unfortunate enough to sit in the stand below these apparent store-your-own-shit-at-home-kit owners.

Disgusting.

To spare everyone's sensitivities I'm not going to include a photo to this posting ...

PS. A quid for the one who finds this story on FA premier league's official homepage ...

Crash review

Something of a challenge for Crash - the film.

Worked the night before until the small hours and went to see it at after-noon cinema. Tickets were a fiver at Leicester Square so it sometimes pays off to work silly hours (it was not the main Odeon, but the Warbourn Street one is not too bad, even though the screen was more of a sofa-cinema standard), company pensioners and youngsters, me and friend.

But at no stage was I even close to falling asleep so first hurdle overcome easily - you can trust Oscars to keep you awake maybe;) (Also, the extra vitamin D provided by the sun migh have had its effect, too) .

Ok, cut the crap, get to Crash

This is a film that seemingly does not have a plot, and partly just because of that i felt it was great. Partly because of this it actually managed to tell soo many stories during the 113 min that I lost count and it was unpredictable until the end. Always a good sign when u cannot guess when a flick ends, what happens next!

Of course everything was meticulously planned and the script was sharp and coherent. Despite the fragmented structure and multiple stories running parallel in the film, there was hardly a stage you felt what the heck is going on - unlike my feeling when watching 21 Grams. A film that made my poor brain working on overdrive much of the film the time.

Basically the learning of the story (now follows the school essay part) was that everything is not what it first seems, ie. Jerk (racist, criminal etc.) in words can be hero in his actions and the most poetic, articulate soul can be shit (shit, i shouldn't write this should i!?:) when it's time to act. Or it is all quite random really. But sometimes good deeds can be rewarded.

The only, well quite, cheesy moment was when Sandra Bullock (the rich beauty bitch) hugs her Mexican maid saying she is her best friend. Ok, she had sprained her ankle and she took care of her but still it wasn't quite believable (despite the short backstory that tried to justify this!)

Previous film before this I saw was Spielberg's Munich. It was sound quality, technically perfect. But somehow for me this felt more real, it felt ... more lifelike.

IMDB says this.

Surfing - updated

Surfing is a great activity.

You can do it either online, or in places such as Australia. Or in Australia you can both surf and do online ... whichever you want at whichever moment (unless there is a shark warning, i'd imagine)

I am doing it at work, in London.

"Internet means end for media barons," media shark Rupert Murdoch screams in print today.

Well, the internet here works but not everything connected to it.

It seems that in a nearly unique occurrence for nearly two years' time the print might prevail tomorrow.

For those who have got access to it.

Well, I am back to my surfing ...

With a prioritising plan meanwhile - hopefully - evolving in my head.

Epilogue at 2.15am:

A miracle! It started working after all, my surfing ended and nobody is unlikely to notice a thing. Fantastic, this world of online!

Followin day, at 16.30pm: Online as usual, definitely. Print did not need to prevail. Anyway, the system (surely) must be built so that one single downtime cannot be too long, cannot take too long to get it back running. That would be problematic if no one could process or "live" anything. Especially when your job relies on the system making it possible for you to do those things.

Of course if you ran out of electricity, that would .. make things properly challenging.

How to do online without electricity.

My technical knowledge is not quite adequate to explain this and anyway it depends a lot on the system configuration. Usually the mainframe runs in a place which is ideally as sheltered as Tora Bora - meaning for example underground in an artificial cave with proper electricity back-upsystem. These machines do not sleep like your office computer might do if you are ecological.

I guess it depends are you able to access the main frame direct from your PC which sounds ... unlikely. You would have servers at your work handling the connection with the main frame. And this tend not be battery-powered.

What this means, basically, is that if aliens invaded earth they could read our (good) online newspapers if the servers keep running from their Tora Boras. Anyway, I doubt too many people were busy doing jobs as mine if the situation ... above our heads was acute.

To make myself clear, I do not believe in aliens - at least in the sense of Alien-the-film or them possessing especially violent desires to attack us. Just one of these lazy frases i guess.

Still, the British Rail filed a patent for a flying saucer in the 1970s, told yesterday's The Times. Now, who would have believed that (especially as it was not April 1st either yesterday or on the day the patent [now expired] was filed).

Good Lord! Hard Rock Hallelujah!

The Eurovision song contest always offers - if not constantly high standard of singing - at least some curious insights into the musical cultures of and relations between various European countries. Such as Finland and Sweden. Especially in these days when each country's participants are creme de la creme of a public vote (read, results of teenagers' and students' text messags).

This year Finland's representative is self-proclaimed "Monster rock band" aptly titled Lord. Or it could a deft move if we got to read headlines such as "Lord rules Europe" afterwards. Instead "Good Lord [and not: Good, Lord!]) seem far more likely. Our main tabloid went for "A monster even scarier than the Loch Ness one selected for Eurovision ..." after Finland's representant got the nod with the ... musical tune titled Hard Rock Hallelujah. (A song titled "The Angel is crying"which definitely has nothing to do with heavy metal finished the bottom of the pile)

But let's be positive about this. This time it is a band some people outside of Finland have actually have heard of it (ok, it might not include you, i admit, but believe your source, some do)

And believe me, if nothing else, they will go out with A BANG! And you will definitely have heard of them, especially if you will attend the live event in Athens.

After all, this is a band relying on the power of serious amounts of "industrial light and magic". I have actually witnessed it myself in Ruisrock festival in Finland, which gathers annually around 100 000 revellers.

Flames shooting up about 10 meters towards the sky that looked more than capable of igniting the whole stage on fire certainly did look impressive after a few drinks. And his voice sounded so hrreerrraarrrvy.

As most heavy metal sounds pretty much the same to me (sorry, sorry ...) the conclusion had to be that there must be worse acts in this field of music ...

The Lord is definitely weird but it might not be that bad for us ... at least they won't be one lost to the obscurity in the masses of pretty young female singers. It really would be difficult to mistake him for a female, and he certainly is not pretty unless your taste is rather ... eclectic.

In any case, I will be waiting for 12 points from Sweden in our time of need ...

Anyway, I am pretty confident that voters will be too scared to give this act zero points! Finland has never won the contest but in the category of "absolute zero acts [nul points]" we are even with Britain and several other countries with one act that did not make the top ten in ANY EUROPEAN COUNTRY, with Norway ruling the rooster in this with two.

Wayne's world

From the middle of pub-induced lethargy i need to return to the keyboard. I want to fight. Wayne (Väinö in Finnish) Rooney (Puuro = porridge).

Such a boring bloke. Just caressed a non-edgy shaped projectile too much when young. And now Sir Winston is only leading 6-5. And the LAD has 60 years (ok, also about 20,000 bottles of whisky) to go ...

In addition to his vast selection of expletives, "The England and Manchester United star will have to find about 500,000 more words to fulfil the biggest deal in the history of sports publishing - a £5m advance from HarperCollins for a five-volume autobiography over the next 12 years."

Sir Winston Churchill's Nobel prize-winning memoirs of the second world war only ran to six volumes, so Rooney, 21 in October, and who has only played top-flight football for four years, will have his work cut out," The Guardian writes.

I'm a Big believer in reduction theory.

Wham, bhanm, thank you grandmam. (Nuu woollies, Vein. Nuu. Juust gou oon)

I mean it is difficult to finish a blog entry without referring to certain notorious event involving Wayne and Mancunian 2nd generation ... model-citizens.

As the rest will be history (or HISStory), I will stop forever on this subject.

Sorry, Wayne. No photo will be attached to this one.

It is the little children. Scary stuff and all that, you see...

How embarrassing ...

Correction: In the recent Poem: Vandraren a line suggests that Aki Riihilahti might French kiss Ian (the manager) and his team mates.

My intention was to imply their possible willingness to embrace each other, maybe (who knows!) tho kiss each other on the cheek if he indeed went to Paris.

I did not intend to say, he might do what Wikipedia (this time more trustworthy than me) describes as follows:

... "While family members may sometimes kiss on the lips, a tongue kiss almost always indicates a romantic or sexual relationship. French kissing stimulates the lips, tongue and mouth, which are all areas very sensitive to touch. It is considered by many to be both very pleasurable and highly intimate. " ...

In essence, I confused French kiss and kiss on the cheek.

I realised this horrifying mistake while watching TV last night.

I will attempt to exercise greater care in the future, even when writing fictional entries. (Not that there would be anything wrong with willing male participants engaging in French kissing with each other. I just think that this might not be the case regarding the individuals implied in the poem)

Apologies.

Poem: Vandraren

Nordman
Ian’s lion Finn
Running, blonde hair swinging in the wind
Ball tamed - somewhat

Roaring forward
Defenders his prey;
An eagle spreading his wings
Dashing towards the net
Paradoxically
Once again

Wonderer
Wanderer
Like the ones in the crowd
Thinks he

Checking his thirst
Still there, or the last swigs of an emptying well?

This Oasis for good?
Lioneagle - the true form of my being?
Or shall there be another

Palace tower has been yeah!
Selhurst shouts my name

But the prairie is vast
Destinations, towering in the horizon
Like Paris

Is this liaison for good
Or time for French kisses?
With Ian and the lads
Before spreading my wings for good

The roar of Carling
The call of the father could decide

*********************************

ps. The photo is stolen from Akiriihilahti.com . He ain't Ronaldinho but has probably, borrowing the style of a certain Danish brewery, the best "official" footballer's web pages in the world!

Quote of the day

"Law at Allen & Overy isn't about justice, it's about facilitating business transactions"
Google it tomorrow and you might find it ...

"The simpler effect is always obtained by means of temperate and wise restraint."
Gertrude Jekyll, 1920s gardening guru

Context: In the office people around me were answering, more or less keenly, a question about characters from literature they'd most like to sleep with. I thought it fitting to follow her ... advice.

Comments welcome, to either side of this double-edged issue ...

ps. How about, "you can run but you cannot ... Hyde" (honestly, i don't know what i'm talking about now so better end this entry here ... i think you could actually hyde under that ... bonnet) Better to end this before my inner Jekyll gets total control over me ...

A more modern issue

"Breastfeeding tops - those hideous T-shirts or blouses with a slit that runs horizontally, which you unbutton to reveal the breast - are a total waste of money; invented as another way to part a new parent from their cash."

Maybe one day i'll thank the person in question for illuminating my working day with this quote. But on the day i have to admit, i thought: O tempora, o mores ...

Den glider in!

Could nearly promise a pint (well, a half at least) to anyone who knows all the multiple meanings of my title.

It is actually quite cool to write about subjects not many (if any of you ...) know about. For example, i can't be blamed of the not-up-to-this-very-second nature of what i am writing about now.

Actually, i have not been able to write about this earlier. It is SOO painfullll.

We lost. Den glidde in i mål igen och igen. En gång får många (i'm sorry teacher if you read this (and are still alive), i know, i used to be very good at Swedish but at least this kinda rhymes).

Sweden 3 Finland 2.

It started so well. Sweden 0 Finland 1. A small eruption of sudden energy found its outlet through the bodies of normally so stoic Finns in West Norwood. Beers and cheers!

We were on the way to the impossible. To win the eight consecutive match of the Olympic ice-hockey tournament, model 2006. This would have been an Olympic record (and the first gold for us in these games and first gold in ice-hockey eveeeeer.

But in this world of swedes and turnips (Cheers, Graham!), bad taste in the mouth was what remained.

We tend to call swedes by the name of Donald Duck's cousin, that goose the name of whom i can't now recall in English and am not bothered to look up for you (sorry and yes, interactivity is the name of the game these days, go find yourselves if you don't know!).

And of course. 2-2, final set. First second into the play. What you might call a ridiculous wooden stick that for some reasons lacks the broom-part at the bottom (ok, it was of NASA quality carbon fibre or whatever the manufacturer wanted to call this £150 piece of shit) went into pieces at the face-off that opened the third period.

The stick belonged to Saku Koivu and in the end him and Teemu Selänne, the Finnish Flash (no, not like that, you dirty-minded individual) could only cry as the Swedes were smiling like Hanko-biscuits (i know, another obscure reference) as if calling to have some of their teeth knocked out.

Why? Because after the ice-hockey stick broke down the Swedes scored 10 seconds into the period. Period.

Ps. Ok, they played some decent ice-hockey as well, the Swedes. But it was our turn this time , really. And why could we not have similar luck (or any luck at all) 30 seconds from the end of the third period when our player was one on one against the sprawling Swedish goalie but could not lift this thing made of volcanic rubber and weighing a massive 170 grams over this not-so high-flying goose who somewhat mysteriously is called by the name of ... eh, never mind.

Pps. The title of this entry? In 1995 it was a beautiful spring day in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. And the Swedes were so sure they would win the ice-hockey world championsips that they made a specific song for it. They were prepared, Absolutely, for the celebrations. What happened? Well, we Finns tend to sing that song a lot these days. in fact, it is the only Swedish song we really, really like.

Pps. The other meanings? Let them be ...