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A way to improve England's chances at success in major football tournaments?
The other day I had an idea, a vision if you will, of how we might make some amendments to the English leagues to improve the chances of the national side progressing beyond the second round. As we approach Euro 2016, my mind goes back to our terribly scratchy performance against Italy in the last tournament, in which we clung on for a penalty ( Read more... ) -
Barcelona 3 - Manchester Utd 1. Reaction
Last night’s performance gave the strongest evidence yet that Barcelona have reinvented the game of football. It is often said of the greatest teams that it seems that they have more than eleven players on the pitch, but such is their coverage of the playing area, both when in possession and when closing down the opposition, that it is incredible ( Read more... ) -
A fear for the future
I look forward to the future, not with hope but with trepidation. I see so many potential signs for unrest and the diminution of human agency, and with it, our happiness, that I’m afraid that I cannot predict other than the unexpectedly imminent demise of the human race. I wouldn’t be so bold as to advance a particular date by which I would expect ( Read more... ) -
On why the economy is of a fixed size
At work the other day, my colleagues greeted with gasps and dismay the news that the British economy had shrunk by 0.5% in the previous quarter. This negative growth is supposed by many to be an indictment of the economic policies which have been so rapidly implemented by the new Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition, led by Nick Clegg and David ( Read more... ) -
Return from Manchester
Today I didn't really read anything. I missed out on the train back from Manchester, where I was on a curious work fact-finding/promotional visit with some enterprising folks from a breakaway local educational authority ( Read more... ) -
Reminiscing
I had a brief, nostalgic tour around North London this evening on my way back from work. I had to drop off a library book on Java programming (not for me, but for the girlfriend) and it was thought-provoking to walk the streets of Kentish Town again ( Read more... ) -
What is to be done?
As Chernychevsky would have said. If truth be known, there's plenty more things that I could be doing right now, and almost certainly nearly all of them would be far more productive than solipsistic me-doodlings of little consequence and import. But ho hum, on we go, round and round and round we go ( Read more... ) -
Long long long
It's been such a long time since I wrote anything in this journal. It's quite amazing in a way to look back and see the things that were running through my mind previously. I've been feeling quite nostalgic the past few days, nostalgic of course for the way things were. There's something sad about the way time passes, it pulls us apart like thread ( Read more... ) -
Essay writin' blues
Struggling to stop my essay about the postwar reconstruction of Iraq from turning into a Naomi Klein-esque polemical rant ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now ( Read more... )