Christmas!

So here we are at Beige Towers at Christmas. Work is finished, food-and-drink shopping is done, and the presents have either arrived by post or been bought here and wrapped and are now residing under the BCFC christmas tree.

One present not wrapped is the work permit extension letter from my boss, who has to decided to extend me at work after all, and so a good amount of the waiting time for permanent residence will now be spent working. There will probably be a wait at the end, but not nearly as damaging to the personal finances. It's nice that things have worked out.

All that remains are phone calls tonight, and then a lengthy webcam appearance tomorrow, which has been militarily scheduled. In the meantime, it's party time at a workmate's house. Happy Christmas everyone!

True Colours

A very quick post to direct anyone interested (there's at least one other chemist that reads these pages) to an article in the Sunday Telegraph today. My Ph.D. supervisor has been developing colour-fast 'dyed' polymeric materials, and formed a spin-out company, DyeCat, with some academic colleagues some years ago based on the results. Following the report of the work, after patent protection, he's now something approaching famous, the work now having appeared in Chemistry World, Chemistry and Engineering News, Nature, Nature Chemistry, the Science Museum in London, the Telegraph, and the original journal article in Angewandte Chemie, International Edition.

Freedom

A rare blog post from work, but I've just seen this on the Guardian website. In light of the recent wikileaks furore, this is really taking the piss, even by American standards:

The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from May 1 - May 3 in Washington, D.C. UNESCO is the only UN agency with the mandate to promote freedom of expression and its corollary, freedom of the press.

The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

To borrow a well-worn phrase, you couldn't make it up.

Trusting Neighbours

I wrote some months ago about the ridiculous hail storm we had in July. Because I'd left my wind-open windows open to full, the hail hit them at almost right angles and so the uPVC frames were riddled with golfball sized holes. As is most of the rest of this side of the building. It looks like it's been strafed with machine-gun fire, or that it would be more at home in Forest Lawn or something. 

About a month ago, two very rickety looking contraptions were rigged up outside, seemingly in preparation to replace them. Look at them. It's hard to tell, but on the way out to the dumpster (right underneath my windows!), I can tell you the winding cable is little thicker than electrical flex. Would you go in such a thing? Up to the sixteenth floor? I certainly wouldn't. Sure enough, two weekends ago I got a note saying 'we are replacing your windows on Monday, please be out of the suite (suite?! ha!) by 8am so we can replace them'.

The work has been postponed because of the high winds/snow/insane cold, but it looks like we're getting closer again; here's the view out the window. Piles of window frames that have been there at least a week. But not one of them stolen. Can you imagine the same situation in the UK? They would have gone in the middle of the night, and been hawked around the back rooms of pubs in the days afterwards.

Broken

The identikit IKEA coffee table on the right is the first bit of furniture I ever bought when I moved here. 

I suppose, for a cost of $20, it has served its purpose, but as you can see it is rather suffering these days. It has had the broken leg held on for some months with nails but has finally given up the ghost this week. I'm oddly attached to it for the reasons above, in the same reason that the laundry basket in my bedroom is still there whilst similarly falling to bits. I should go and visit IKEA for the first time in approaching three years, and get replacements. 

Except it's a bit of a trek on public transport from where I live, and the thought of having to drag it an hour or more on the train/bus isn't much fun.

Cold

On the Canadian permanent residence form, there is a box for you to indicate where you would be living. 

Unfortunately, 'the second coldest place on the planet today' wouldn't fit. There aren't sufficient words in the English language to describe what it's like outside right now.

I got a very amused look from the boss man, whom I passed in the hallway on the way downstairs as I arrived at work this morning. I was still fully wrapped up, and with pained expression, after nearly ten minutes of walking through heated buildings. Just..............painful today. The only exposed bit of skin was the band between woolly hat and top of coat, about two inches worth. It was like being stabbed in the eyes.

Winter

Once, very long ago, one of the first computer games I ever owned was 'Cannon Fodder' for the PC. A shoot'emup in which your soldiers were guided around the screen by the mouse. One of the very first levels was called bugger me, it's cold which amused my 13 year old self lots.

I found myself muttering this this morning after a gap of some twenty years. Here's the scene at Beige Towers this morning, after 36 hours of steady snow, which hasn't stopped all day and isn't forecast to until tomorrow morning.  And as I walked home tonight, trying not to fall over in the middle of the road on the polished smooth surface, I reflected "well, if the residence application comes off, get used to many many more of them, and quit your moaning since you've done this voluntarily!"

The Numbers Game

I  made an offhand, slightly tongue in cheek remark this lunchtime on twitter about the Bantams' game this morning, which caused another member to very mildly tell me off for moaning. The problem with the internet is that you very often can't read people's body language when they make a remark, and I'm not overly keen on the use of emoticons. 

The remark I made was about the City debutant keeper Lenny Pidgeley and his wearing of the #40 shirt; I don't like such high numbers. In fact, I'm not a fan of squad numbering full stop, and would much rather see teams in 1-11. But numbering is here to stay, as a way for all teams to maximise their profits on merchandising. I would always prefer to see a goalie wearing #1, #13, or #21, and always did so on Championship/Football Manager, so I remarked about how #40 didn't look right. Of course, between posting that and coming back to the computer I remembered - and was prompted by other twitterers - that that was the number he was given at Chelsea when he began his career. He also wore it in his league debut on the last day of the 2004-5 season, after Chelsea won the league title. So I understand his attachment to it, and his subsequent wearing of it during his career. I'm reminded of a local Alberta League game I saw 18 months ago when a friend was making his first refereeing performance at that level; one goalie was wearing #85. Number eighty five!!

I think part of my attachment to 1-11 is the fact that in such a system, you pretty much knew which position each player played in. The same is certainly true for both forms of Rugby (or was till RL went to squad numbers) and to sllightly lesser degree the various forms of gridiron: NFL, CFL and college football. In baseball, players were first numbered 1-9 according to their position in the batting order; which has eventually resulted in numbers in cricket which just looks so very, very wrong. There was the odd time in football when the numbers were moved around to cause confusion; I remember Chris Kamara's first game in charge in the fog vs Preston when Carl Shutt - as centre forward - wore #2, and Wayne Jacobs, left back, wore #9. The number 9 is perhaps the most iconic of all numbers; we all imagine robust, goalscoring strikers with them, think Bobby Campbell, Sean McCarthy or Lee Mills if you're a Bantam. 

But in the era of squad numbers, if said goalscoring striker is moved to another team, an incoming player might take it on. Such was the case when Nicky Summerbee signed for City in 2003. A right winger in the #9 just looked wrong. Not quite as wrong as William Gallas, latterly of Arsenal, wearing #10 while playing as a central defender, though. Earlier in 2003, things had got so out of hand, injury wise that a whole rash of youth teamers and loanees had to fill the team. This was best demonstrated at a game in Norwich in  March 2003. 

That side contained Lewis Emanuel (#33), Simon Francis (#35), Danny Forrest (#38), Ben Muirhead (#43), and Laurens ten Heuvel (#45). On the bench were Kevin Sanasy (#39), Danny Ekoku (#40) and Frazer McHugh (#44). I would link to BoyFromBrazil's archive, but since the recent site revampt the links don't work. It was commented upon on Soccer Saturday; the game was being watched by Brian Little because Claus Jorgensen was attempting to tie the Everton legend Dixie Dean's record of scoring in eight successive league games away from home. The inestimable Jeff Stelling was making allusions to lottery/bingo numbers all afternoon. They were almost at the point of hockey numbers, or baseball perhaps.Unless you were a fan, you had no real idea about where they played.

Of course, a hockey team has to dress 20 players for an NHL game (22 in most European leagues) rather than the 11 for a football match: two goalies, six defencemen and 12 forwards. For historical reasons, most teams goalies wear either #1, or #30 (or a number in the 30's), provided those numbers aren't retired. Defencemen typically wear low numbers #2 - #7 or #8, and forwards wear numbers typically from #7 or #8 upwards. There are most numbers up to the 90s, though this is often because a number a player wants isn't available, and so they have to 'reverse' their number; there are a good number of #71, #81 and #91 in the league. They could also 'double' their number, so you see a good number of players that wear #33, #44, or #55. Perhaps the two best forwards that ever graced the ice in Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux wore #99 and #66 respectively, and were such superstars noone would ever complain. In the current era, a number of NHL players were born in the late 80s, so we now have Sidney Crosby, the current poster boy wearing #87, Chicago's Patrick Kane in #88, denoting the years of their birth. Continental football is much worse for players wearing their birth year as their shirt number than in the UK, and we have to hope it doesn't catch on.

The habit of retired numbers also looms in the NHL (as it does all four major North American sports): the Montreal Canadiens have retired #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #9, #10 and #12. This is in part due to their age as the oldest current NHL team (formed in 1909), and results in several players wearing jerseys in the #50s and higher. A similar situation exists in baseball; the New York Yankees have retired  #1, #3, #4, #5, #7, #8, #9, #10. Derek Jeter's #2 is certain to be retired once he does. I would really hope that the retirement of football shirt numbers doesn't catch on too much. I know Manchester City retired the #23 shirt after the tragic death of Marc-Vivien Foe while on international duty, but I think one of the great things about football is the handing down of numbers from one generation to the next; think the Liverpool #7 shirt from Keegan to Dalglish to Beardsley. Nigel Clough we won't dwell on too much. Think the same for the Newcastle #9. Think about our number 9 shirt and the names mentioned above, on a much less grand level.

To some teams, though, the sight of a player in a fancy number is anathema. My own Calgary Flames and also the New Jersey Devils actively endeavour to have players wearing as continuous a set of numbers as possible. This is to avoid the 'look at me, with my wacky individual number' attitude, in an attempt to foster the 'no-one is bigger than the team' ethic. Pittsburgh have taken the '87' meme to ridiculous extremes; Sidney Crosby wore #9 - as all good first line centres should - in both peewee/bantam/midget hockey and at junior level. Because his birthday is 8/7/87 in north american format, his number was changed to #87. His contract is current $8.7m per year. The capacity of the new arena in Pittsburgh is 18,087. There are no such issues here in Calgary; the four contracted Calgary goalies wear #s 33, 34, 35 and 36. The D-men wear #s 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 27, 28, and 29, and the forwards #s 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 32, 40 and 44 (players wearing 1, 16 and 19 left the club in the off season,  numbers 9 and 30 are retired, and 2 and 14 are unofficially retired).

And i think the hockey numbers analogy illustrates what I'm trying to say; while it's difficult to generalise, I think, wearing unusual numbers is a bit too much 'look at me' and not enough 'look at the team'.

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

The package of doom has made its way to the destination. Not bad for it to get there this morning having only taken it to the post office on Friday morning. Now I have to cross my fingers that everything is complete. Only one cloud on the horizon; the processing time seems to currently be through the roof.  From scrutinising websites where people enter their timelines into spreadsheets, it seems all application streams in Buffalo hit a wall in mid May, and instead of 'acknowledgement of receipt' letters arriving within a month, now they are taking upwards of four months to arrive and for CIC to begin processing the application. This worries me, given there are only four months from now until my work permit expires. A glimmer of light on the same tracking database websites shows that AOR letters are beginning to appear again, so hopefully the CIC were just clearing a backlog; I will have to reconsider plans if I have to spend more than 6 months waiting for my application as a visitor to Canada. I could afford it (probably), but I don't know whether that's such a wise thing from a CV point of view, to be wilfully sat doing nothing when I could be back in the UK earning some money on a short-term basis.

Vox Populi

Today is the election for the mayor of Calgary. There are fifteen candidates on the ballot today; I'm ineligible to vote given my non-citizenship, but it's been fascinating to watch the coverage all the same. 

The three main candidates were the long-time alderman Ric McIver, conservative, with the reputation of "Dr. No". Also were the former CTV news anchor Barb Higgins (think the Calgary version of Christa Ackroyd, but not quite as orange), and the left-leaning Naheed Nenshi, former professor at Mount Royal university in Southern Calgary. Nenshi leads by 14,000 votes with about 65% of the votes counted. So far, there are 185,000 votes counted, dwarfing the turnout of previous elections. There have been long queues and voting extended beyond the 8pm deadline, such has been the interest. Most people at work disappeared at 6pm to go and vote.

For the people of the city to pick a brown, muslim man as mayor -who was unheard of a few months ago- in this supposedly bluer-than-blue ultra-conservative province, will hopefully do something to dispel the image of Calgary as a town full of rednecks. It isn't.

Passing Tests

Finally, after a nearly a week of grumbling that my English tests aren't here, they were in my mailbox when I arrived home tonight. Three of the scores (speaking, listening and writing) are as expected. I thought I might have missed a listening point or two. The speaking test finished ten minutes early, and writing essays with a pencil for the first time in more than twenty years is harder than you'd think since you can't correct large swathes of what you write after the fact.

But the reading score I'm bewildered by. The implication, from various practice websites, is that I got at least two answers wrong. And it just isn't possible. Those passing through, thinking it might be a bit of hubris, don't know me well enough; part of my job is not being convinced about things, not believing things until you are absolutely sure about them. And even then couching your results in language that might get you out of trouble if someone proves you wrong. I had 30 minutes to check and re-check and re-re-check the answers. Impossible.

Still, at least it means the application documentation is now complete. A check-through tonight, photocopy it all tomorrow, one more check and off to the post office. Five months of hassle, now over. Now the waiting begins.

ConDemNation

In the recent UK general election, Nick Clegg was heralded as a breath of fresh air.  'I agree with Nick' became a meme on the internet. Vince Cable was lauded as the man who predicted the credit crunch. Both signed a pledge resisting the increase of tuition fees. Here are Clegg's own words during the campaign:

"Not only will we oppose any raising of the cap, we will scrap tuition fees for good, including for part-time students … Students can make the difference in countless seats in this election. Use your vote to block those unfair tuition fees and get them scrapped once and for all."

Today, Lord Browne announced a radical shake-up of the higher education system, in which universities can effectively (at a minimum) double the tuition fees, in addition to swingeing cuts in the teaching budget. Notable for not sticking to their pledges? Messrs Clegg and Cable. It seems once you get your feet under the table at Number 10, promises you make to voters become much easier to back away from, as you pull the drawbridge up from behind you. They both benefited from a completely free university education, as did I, in one of the very last year-groups to benefit from the 'old' arrangements. 

As a consequence, I am largely financially independent of my parents and am not saddled with a huge debt to the Student Loans Company. Today's decision means some students will have to approach 30,000 pounds of debt to gain a degree. It's the first step on the road to the US system, where current tuition fees exceed $30,000 per year at places such as Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, CalTech and so on.  That is what Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College and so on aspire to be, and that is why they are constantly bleating about being 'left behind' and grasping for more money. Very soon, the top universities will be the domain of the very rich, and not necessarily the most talented. Which is a very bad situation for the UK as a whole to be in.

Back in January, I took one of the visiting speakers to lunch; he lives and works in one of America's finest cities (having visited I would agree), and has a worldwide reputation in his field. He was interested in the various academic systems myself and two others (a Mexican and a Canadian) had been through and the conversation extended to the US system. He has three children of university age. Bearing in mind his occupation, and his professorial salary (he can afford half-season tickets for one of the NBA's most storied teams), for him to call the tuition fees at such institutions as outrageous was very illuminating. All three children attend the state-run public universities. This will be the situation in the UK very quickly. Along similar lines, I was talking to a friend this afternoon whose younger sister may not now be able to afford to go to university at all. That's a terrible situation to be in.

So instead of the new politics, it's politics as usual. I would have voted LD at the election given enough time to arrange a postal vote. There's absolutely no way I would countenance such a decision in the future. Sad to see that those who paint themselves as 'outsiders', and not tainted by the Westminster machine, can be so quickly assimilated by it.

Best of British

I'm watching the rescue of the chilean miners on the BBC website. For them to be alive two months after the collapse, it's a miracle in itself. Hopefully in a  a few hours or a day or two, they'll be reunited with their loved ones. It's a pleasure to be able to watch coverage which isn't hyperbolic or inane (hello Sky!). Those who would wish the BBC emasculated, or the license fee abolished, should be careful what they wish for; the two presenters are switching seamlessly between English to the camera, and Spanish to the locals. I can't believe people want to cut the BBC to ribbons when it's an organisation of such worldwide renown, of which we should be very proud.

Coupling

The Nobel Prize in chemistry was announced today. For once, it has gone to people who are actually chemists, and not been subsumed by the biology or medicine prizes like it usually seems to be (interdiscplinarity be damned!).  In our office at work, on the eve of the decision, names are written on the whiteboard as to who we think it will be. Every year, there are wild guesses which are wrong. Every year, Heck/Suzuki/Negishi are written on the board, and finally they won. The article linked to is a reasonable description of their breakthrough; coupling of aromatic rings was previously only accomplished through forcing, harsh conditions which often produced large amounts of waste. 

Their discoveries, from the 1960s onwards, and the lifetime of work on the systems thereafter, has resulted in ever more complex syntheses of the organic molecules needed for drug design, through mild, widely applicable methodology. We all use these methods on a daily basis in the lab, and that's what the Prize should be; long lasting breakthroughs that have wide benefit to others in the field. Given the last synthetic chemists to win the prize did so in 2005, I suspect it will be some years before others do.

Almost There

The end of the first stage of the permanent residence saga approaches. Having realised my degree certificates were thousands of miles away, I hesitantly them entrusted to Canada Post via Royal Mail on the 25th of September. Eventually, they arrived on Monday - the tracking number on Canada Post's website didn't work till Sunday afternoon - and there were relieved expressions all round.

Despite copies of them already having been certified as authentic by the university in Leeds (5 months ago!!), I got them notarised this morning, along with birth certificate, passport, RSC certificate, work permit, etc. The guidance notes are unclear whether they should be notarised or not, but there are warnings everywhere that incomplete forms will be returned and faster processing will result if everything is clear and unequivocal. That said, I girded myself for one last gouging at the hands of the permanent residence industry. I was guided to a notary public in the city centre by someone I know who is much further down the residency road than I am; $40 for the lot. Compare this to a host of firms who charge $60 for the first document, $30 for the second, and so on. You can take the man out of Yorkshire etc etc etc.

(Still, $40 for less than 5 minutes work. I'm in the wrong job)

I am only now waiting for the results of my English tests to arrive next week. Once that is done, I can withdraw the hefty fee and submit. The weekend will be spent checking and triple checking the forms; the number of discrepancies between what the guidance notes say, and what the form asks for, is quite mind-bending. I've had to re-do whole pages of it to add more information, as well as adding supplemental sheets where the gaps are absurdly small to write in. Here's what the application looks like now. I shall be glad when I can concentrate fully on work again!

I have blurred the images slightly, so as to not provide people with an opportunity to completely steal my identity.

Defending the Crown

The lab hockey pool crown, that is. Ladies and Gentlemen, give it up for the Flaming Jokers. I was a bit bothered I hadn't done so well in the draft, but comparing my side with a couple of others, I feel a bit better now. That said, three of the first six picks were defencemen and I'm not sure that's such a wise strategy. We shall see how things turn out.

Autumn

I'm not sure whether today counts as Autumn; it is October, but it was 26 degrees out there today. It's almost like we had October's weather in September and  now we're having September's in October. In any case, nice enough for a good walk. The colours out there are terrific at present and armed with the camera I walked parallel to the Bow river this afternoon, on a raised escarpment with a terrific view of the city centre. Here's a sample of what Cowtown looks like right now.

Bandwagon Jumping

In some of the posts below, I've remarked about being reactionary and taking a bit of time to stop and think, and evaluate words before posting. So to that end, I've waited a good 12 hours since the latest shambles of a performance in BD8 this morning. But the message remains the same. Peter Taylor should be given the heave-ho before our position in the relegation zone becomes insurmountable. We're now ten games into the league season, almost a quarter of the way. A few facts (I sound like Rafa Benitez during his famous conspiracy theory rant, I think):

We have the lowest number of shots on target in the division.
Our strikers have not scored a single goal in open play in the league.

We are scoring at 0.4 goals a game.

The manager does not have a clue what his best 11 is, injuries or not.

His player management is appalling; what message are players to infer from the dropping two of the back four who contributed to a clean sheet at Rotherham last Tuesday,  for two Man. Utd. youngsters who have never played a league game? What are the three strikers sat on the bench, while a central defender of modest-to-poor repute plays up front, supposed to think? To think we viewed the appointment as a good one, and the other candidate, the mentalist Martin Allen was seen as 'phew, dodged a bullet there'. Martin Allen might be bonkers, but he wouldn't have the club in its lowest positon since the 1960s. Not even John Docherty was the subject of the crowd's wrath this quickly, and he had fans chanting 'WE WANT FOOTBALL' at games.

Time to go. I wonder if by the time I wake up in the morning he will be gone.

English

The clip below came to mind this morning, when I was on my way to my English speaking test for my immigration application this morning. I was telling myself, having consulted the marking schemes/notes 'speak slowly, pronounce words properly'. Helloooooooooooo.

So after a weekend of testing, did I accomplish or learn anything? Essentially, no. I got at least 38/40 on the listening test, the last couple of answers coming very quickly in a monologue. I got each and every reading answer right, in half the allotted time. I managed to fill the answer book with a 150 word letter and a 250 word essay in the writing test. Hopefully I don't get marked down for going on at length. And then in the speaking test, I was out in barely over 10 minutes, in comparison to the maximum twenty for the Mexican and Filipino gentlemen that went in before I did. You know something is pretty pointless when the examiner can barely keep a straight face when I answer questions like 'what is your name?' and 'where are you from; and tell me about it'. I think she gave up in the end, but not before I treated her to a brief whinge about Bradford Council, and relating a story about a school teacher's favourite remark of 'did you draw that with a lump of coal?'. Oh, and a whinge about a school art teacher that was 16 years in fermentation.

I'd estimate about a third of the 100 people there were British, all chuntering away about what a pointless waste of time it was, and most revelling in having done no preparation at all. I suspect most people were dischuffed at having to be up early on a Saturday morning (I was up at 6:30 both days). I had to fill a couple in in the line behind me as to what was going to happen. "You mean you actually looked all this up?" Yes, seeing as I wasn't going to be complacent about anything; I've learnt from bitter experience about how this whole business bites you on the arse when you least expect it.

So all that remains: take the photocopies of my passport/birth certificate/work permit/degree certificates/etc and get them notarised, and withdraw the money for the first part of the application.  The forms have been filled in for 3 months. The one worry is that I have had to get my degree certificates mailed to me in order to get the copies - already signed as authentic by the University - notarised as well. I am trying to leave nothing to chance, even though it probably means yet more expense. I will not have CIC send them back to me for the sake of vaguely worded guidance notes. The thought of Canada Post scuppering the thing yet again terrifies me, and so the certificates are being sent by tracked mail. People of Britain: don't let me ever hear you, ever, complaining about Royal Mail. You don't know how good you have it. Fingers and everything else crossed that said documents get here in one piece.

At Last!

It's funny that after all these years of working in academia, and publishing so many papers that are pretty good but not earth shattering, that I finally get a paper in a big journal with large readership after making the decision to bail out on academia.

If this happened four or five years ago, I'm sure that maybe I might have got an interview or two. As it is, I just have to settle back and bask in the reflected success; I have done very little to contribute bar the odd experiment and provide a critique of the completed manuscript; a friend did the majority of the work and wrote the thing. The system concerned is my baby though, and it's nice to see it turned out all right! Check out article number 20 on the left. One word can make such a difference on a publication list. The difference between 'J. Am. Chem. Soc., submitted' and 'J. Am. Chem. Soc., accepted' is vast. A nice end to a hectic, stressful week.

Tests

It's now roughly 24 hours till the first three of my English tests for permanent residence are now complete. I feel reasonably confident that having sat a couple of the practice listening/reading tests at home on the internet, I'll do fine at those. I think it a bit mean that to get in the top band of '9', you have to score 40/40 on each.

I am slightly more worried about the writing test, and have spent most of the last two days reading/brushing up on grammar, sentence construction and something called 'grammatical range'. I should have paid more attention in English classes, I think. I am just going to have to go in there and have the mindset of pretending I am writing a journal article to be published. Fancy vocabulary ahoy!

Hot

I'm back north of the border after a quick trip south for my trip to the NFL. It was a great day out, but incredibly hot; during the game the temperature pushed 96F (35.5C) and despite liberal application of suncream I'm rather pink in parts. Such extreme conditions meant liquid intake was strictly limited to pop and water. Getting all sensible in near middle-age. It was otherwise very noisy, but not surprising when 73,000 football nuts gather together in one place. Here are a couple of photos to be going on with till I can work out how on earth to make a photo gallery. Or those of you without facebook could get yourself on there and see them all. ;-)

Lost Treasure

A lost heirloom found on YouTube tonight: the 1999 tour of Ben Folds Five to Japan, promoting their third album The Unauthorised Biography of Reinhold Messner. It had appeared on a fan channel before, but had sadly been taken down. Here they are at the peak of their powers, which is odd considering the very same third album essentially finished them - amicably it must be said - as a band.

I'd been listening to it a fair bit this week on the walk to and from work; it's a 'sad' or 'depressed' mood music, and I'd begun to worry a bit about applying for visitor status after my work permit expires, after reading multiple confusing documents on the CIC website. The immigration saga continues to drag interminably. Having spent a good couple of hours reading, I'm feeling a little more optimistic now. So here's the very oddly incongruous - in the context of the rest of the album - Army, dealing with the choices and trials of life.

The line at 2:54 is not the original ;-). The rest of the concert can be seen here; for some odd reason the songs are listed in reverse order in 'uploads' so start at the bottom! Watch it before lawyers have it taken down again!!

Friday Musing

It really doesn't seem like I had a holiday at all; two weeks of being back at work and it's a real effort again. I remember my Ph.D. supervisor all those years ago once saying words to the effect of 'enjoy what you do, and give it 100%. If you're not doing so, think about things'. Wise words I think. Fortunately, in a way, things are now probably taking a different direction and taking me away from previous plans. My work permit has six months less three days to go, and following a conversation with my boss, my contract won't be renewed. It's entirely amicable; the company sponsoring our work want to renew for a couple of years and he wants to use that two years on one person, not 6 months on an extension for me and 18 months for someone else. I understand that and am fine with it.

I broached the extension subject with him last week because as it stands, my work permit will expire long before my permanent residence application is processed. I figure my English test results will arrive the first week in October. So if I got the application out the same day, I'd have effectively five months of working time left. My work permit is for the university only, and so I'd have to try and find a job willing to spend the time and money to find me another one. My main problem is I'm not a permanent resident yet, and most jobs are advertised as 'Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority'. Still, I can't let that get in the way, so I've now tarted up my CV and I've seen a job or two I'll apply for. I have no experience of the oil and gas industry, but my job and training is such that I pick things up quickly out of necessity. I'll sign on to a couple of recruitment consultants as well. I think a new direction like oil/gas research (drilling fluids and so on) would be quite interesting. The thought of ending up as 'mud engineer' is a funny one.

If a new job doesn't turn up by Christmas, I'll have to apply to remain as a visitor afterwards (proof of funds to live on isn't a problem) given the current processing times are two months. That's all very well except that I can't work while a visitor and the residence application might take another three or four months. So in anticipation of not being able to work, I've begun, like most of the UK, 'austerity measures' in an attempt to hoard some cash. That, and a ridiculous run of very necessary things in the last three or four months had maxed out one credit card, and made a dent in the one across the water as well.

So I've told myself I'm not allowed to buy anything that isn't food (or the odd night out) once a week. No more buying lunch; it'll be made instead. No more DVDs. No more iTunes. No more clothes /shoes shopping. On the lunch front, I've bought and eaten more fruit in the last week than I probably have done in the last two years. Odd to have the 'wow, it's cheap, and I feel better' epiphany after all these years. My inner Yorkshireman is appalled at how much I have spent on lunch in the last two years!

Friday Music

So after a long winded sort of a week, where not much got done except endless annoying corrections to a journal manuscript, here's a bit of musical Canadiana I unwound to this evening. I managed to miss all but the last two songs in the encore when it was broadcast over the internet a month ago. Here it is from the top. It wins the internet. If you've got a spare 94 minutes, plump up a cushion and enjoy*. It makes me really regret that I can't play any musical instruments, when each of them can play each other's, but then music and drama were the two subjects at school I disliked more than any other.

For maximum aural pleasure, I suggest a proper set of speakers, or some good headphones. YouTube have set the volume too low I think.

* Some occasional naughty language between songs. The chorus of one song about halfway through shouldn't be taken literally (it's metaphorical (or is it allegorical? I never remember); I take it to mean Bush-era neo-Conservatism). Also, you will need a computer from the 21st century, so that it can keep up. You know who you are!

Winning Ugly

Bradford City 1 (Evans (pen) 32)
Stevenage 0

Attendance: 10,967

So to the second - and last, short of a playoff final - match report of the season. Those of us that have watched this lot for the past 20 years (or more!) know that the inevitable outcome of a fantastic cup upset is that they'll play like complete idiots the following Saturday. And so given how most of the players could barely move at the end of extra time following the win over Nottingham Forest, it boded ill for the visit of the league newcomers. There had already been some squad rotation for the Forest game, as compared to the lineup that started at Shrewsbury last week. Once again, Taylor shuffled the pack; out went the injured Speight, the disciplined Williams, Rehman, Moult, and Neilson. In came Evans, Adeyemi, Oliver, and Hunt.

You have to wonder whether all the changes from game to game are hindering the understanding of the team with each other at present. Remember also, that the preseason games were all essentially two different teams in each half. What is preseason for, if not to build understanding between the members of the first team? As far as I can make out, the only time the lineup you could consider the first team played together, was the last 30 minutes of a game against Bradford Park Avenue. Not exactly the level opposition we'll meet week in week out. Unsurprisingly, given the changes, City began slowly. Stevenage, buoyed by their first visit to Valley Parade were keen to make an impression and moved the ball neatly from back to front, but were generally limited to shots from distance as they found the Bradford backline hard to negotiate. City were ponderous; Hanson was labouring from a preseason halted by injury and then a long shift on Tuesday. Daley was Daley; a threat occasionally, but lost the ball a lot.

As it was, City took the lead. Bullock miscontrolled a ball from the right, and in attempting to reach the loose ball was scythed over by a Stevenage midfielder. Had he controlled it the first time the shot would probably have been blocked or missed. Evans sent the keeper the wrong way from the spot. City are a team that are often settled by taking the lead, but not this time. Half time came and the only shot on target registered by the home side was the penalty. In the early part of the second half, Daley's slaloming run from right to left gave a chance to double the lead. As the Stevenage defence parted, fearful of his pace, it left him one-on-one with the keeper, but he blazed wide and high with his weaker left foot. This seemed to be a turning point in the game. Stevenage pressed and harried, and the City team couldn't complete three passes in a row. The three central midfielders were seemingly under orders to not move from in front of the back four and not run ahead of the ball. Consequently, the forwards became more and more isolated. Hanson looked shattered but wasn't replaced. Adeyemi looked lost in midfield. Doherty was struggling also. The ball just kept on coming back.

And because the ball kept coming back, the mistakes in the overworked defence started to come. Duff's woefully underhit, blind backpass sent striker Yemi Odubade streaking away; McLaughlin's sprawling block right on the edge of the area foiled him. Moments later, a hesitation from Duff let Odubade in behind him and McLaughlin had to head away well outside the area, levelling the Stevenage forward in the process and ending his afternoon. Taylor had seen enough. Duff's league debut as captain lasted barely an hour, replaced by Zesh Rehman. Rehman has his detractors among the support but he came on and provided more solidity in the back four. Syers and Moult replaced Doherty and Daley soon afterwards. City ground it out, often with eleven players in the penalty area at corners and despite a late Stevenage flurry when a couple of free kicks were driven wide, kept the visitors at bay. That's the one major positive from the game; 90 minutes played, McLaughlin only rarely called upon.

Negatives? They did almost nothing of note in the attacking third of the field. Their only shot on target in the whole game was a free one from the spot. The midfield needs to get more involve, run beyond the ball, and attack balls into the box. Think back to the World Cup: Holland were pilloried for having two deep lying defensive midfielders, at times on Saturday it looked like we had three. Hanson and Doherty are clearly not anywhere near match fit. And the booing. Yes, opening day at home, a win, and booing from the crowd. Peter Taylor has commented about his displeasure at this in the papers today. I can understand both sides; it was an awful performance, but at the same time the team needs encouragement after so many poor home campaigns. But Saturday's fare was never going to get them on the edge of their seats. It had been commented widely upon Taylor's arrival in February that the football might become a little more pragmatic than under McCall. If it results in promotion, I think we can probably say that the ends justify the means. But it won't be pretty if it's like Saturday every week.

Bradford City: McLaughlin: Hunt, Oliver, Duff (Rehman), O'Brien: Bullock, Doherty (Syers), Adeyemi: Evans, Hanson, Daley (Moult): Subs not used: Saxton, Threlfall, Flynn, Neilson.

Stevenage: Day: Henry, Roberts, Bostwick, Laird: Byrom, Sinclair (Boylan), Mousinho: Odubade (Winn), Griffin, Beardsley (Vincenti). Subs not used: Bayes, Wilson, Charles, Foster.

Little Englanders

Something from twitter this evening. I've just read a tweet from the Daily Telegraph's football correspondent Henry Winter bemoaning a debate on Talksport about Everton's Spanish midfielder Mikel Arteta, and why he should play for England. Presumably this is because he now qualifies on the basis of residency. Winter's remark is "Madness. England must develop players, not nick them. Just not cricket". This sort of thing comes round from time to time, in the near past, Manuel Almunia used the back pages to issue thinly veiled 'come and get me' pleas. It died a death because he's not actually any good.

Was Henry paying any attention to the German team at the World Cup? Klose, Podolski and Trochowski: Polish. Ozil: Turkish. Khedira: Tunisian. Boateng: Ghanaian. Cacau: Brazilian. Gomez: Spanish. If it's good enough for the Germans, it should be good enough for us. Are we ever going to start to learn from other sides? Or are we going to continue to be fearful of perceived backlashes of the same old stuffed-shirt bluster from 'outraged of Tunbridge Wells'? It's such a lack of openness to change and improvement that has held English football back to the point where it's an also ran at international level.

Arteta is a scheming, crafty midfielder with an eye for goal and technical ability far superior to those that appear for England on a regular basis. He would easily enhance the English midfield, what with $tevie Me's blunderbuss approach and Flat Track Frank. Was Winter outraged when Owen Hargreaves opted for England (born in Calgary to Welsh father, schooled in Germany)? Arteta would be behind Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Alonso and a horde of other equally talented players that litter the Spanish league in the stakes for Spanish selection. If he wants to play for England, why on earth not?

Ghosts

Bradford City 2 (Syers 57, Hanson 100)
Nottingham Forest 1 (Thornhill 36)

Attendance: 5,175

Last night's game was the first of two I'll get to see this year; on paper something of a mismatch. Forest finished third in the Championship and we finished 14th in Division Four, a gap of some 59 league places. In the same round last season, Forest triumphed 3-0, so fans were perhaps worried that after a spluttering start to the league campaign at Shrewsbury, another defeat might have been hard on confidence. Certainly in the first half, it looked pretty much inevitable that Forest would win; they moved the ball around with the skill, precision, and pace you'd expect for a team in last years playoffs. In comparison, the Bradford play was stilted and ponderous and on occasion almost painful to watch, as the back four laboriously played themselves into trouble in constant attempts to bring the ball out from the back. Fortunately, the Forest final ball was generally dreadful, and when they could send lone striker Nathan Tyson clear on goal midway through the half, Jon McLaughlin was up to the job. Tyson was otherwise shackled by the impressive Steve Williams. The barber from Bamber Bridge could be a real player if he cuts out the lapses in concentration.

Nevertheless, when Matt Thornhill's angled drive from eight yards found the back of the net it seemed like the natural order of things was being maintained. The Bradford midfield hadn't got to grips with Forest's at all (lining up 4-4-2 they were constantly outnumbered by the Forest 4-5-1/4-3-3). Even so, outnumbered or not, Omar Daley and Scott Neilson had had games to forget. Daley is still searching for form and fitness after a year out injured and Neilson, while trying hard couldn't do anything right. Peter Taylor had seen enough, and axed both of the above and Lee Bullock at half time. Harsh on Bullock though. On in their place came James Hanson, Simon Ramsden and the summer trialist from Guiseley, David Syers, who had signed non-contract forms that afternoon.

Syers' first contribution was to offer some meaty midfield challenges in the rearranged 4-3-3 formation, and was in the right place to bundle the ball home after Jake Speight and Forest keeper Lee Camp's collision left the ball squirming towards the net. Speight was terrific last night; a constant threat that drew ever more agricultural challenges from the Forest back line. Such challenges went mostly unpunished from referee Ilderton. Given the off-field distractions that have marred Speight's off season - nor am I defending them, as they shouldn't be - his restraint in such provocation was admirable. On this showing, he'll be a real handful for fourth division defences; for a relatively short player, his hold up play and strength with back to goal was quite formidable.

Forest were sparked into life. I suspect, given they had lost five players to midweek internationals that they were trying to win with minimum effort. As it was, they had to send on established players in McKenna, Adebola and Blackstock to try and win the game. None came closer than Tyson, late in the game, when his shot from distance was tipped onto the post by McLaughlin. Blackstock's shot on the rebound, seemingly into an unguarded net, was blocked by a flying Shane Duff. So to extra time. Not what Bradford wanted when playing on Saturday, and also considering all three replacements had been made at half time. In addition, McLaughlin was playing on one leg after bruising a hip towards the end of normal time. Then came the moment. Speight was hacked over yet again in the penalty arc. Finally the referee gave a free kick; Ramsden's driven shot was blocked by Camp, Williams' rebound was blocked before Hanson summoned the ghost of fellow ex-part-timer-turned-Bantam-pro Ian Ormondroyd - a goal in each leg against Forest in this competition 15 years ago - to bundle the ball home.

They were dead on their feet by this point. McLaughlin bailed them out with ten minutes to go with a stunning block from Blackstock, and then eased the pressure considerably by coming for and claiming each cross and throw that rained in in the last ten minutes. The final whistle brought muted reactions from the players, who could barely move, but in the stands there were memories of giant killings in far off days from the mid-nineties when we were a formidable cup opponent; this was our first cup win over a team from a higher division in 13 years, since a certain afternoon at Goodison Park. That was an exciting time for the club as it rose through the divisions and there are many fond memories from that time. Given that I now live overseas, it's those sort of things that I really miss; Hull, Blackpool, Wembley, Everton, Nigel Pepper's thunderbolt vs QPR when any relegation worries were blown far away, Gordon Watson's comeback against Barnsley, Wolves, beating Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea. It was fun. After a decade in the doldrums where attending games has been more of a duty, rather than a pleasurable experience, hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

Bradford City: McLaughlin; Rehman, Williams, Duff, O'Brien; Neilson (Hanson), Bullock (Ramsden), Doherty, Daley (Syers); Moult, Speight. Subs not used: Saxton, Horne, Threlfall, Oliver.

Nottingham Forest: Camp; Chambers, Morgan, Lynch (McKenna), Cohen; McCleary, McGugan (Adebola), Thornhill, Moussi, Anderson (Blackstock); Tyson. Subs not used: Darlow, Freeman, Rodney, Gibbons.

First Impressions

I blogged here some time ago about an outdoor NHL game in Calgary. It turns out I jumped the gun a bit, but so did the local media. In the end, there will be a Heritage Classic game played outdoors at McMahon Stadium - a short-ish walk from where I live - next February against the Montreal Canadiens. Today saw the official announcement, press conference, and unveiling of the team's retro, one-off jersey. To say that it caused a bit of a squall on the internet was something of an understatement. I certainly didn't like it, but the first image released suggested it was straight red and yellow and looked like something Ronald McDonald might wear.

Only when video/photos of it being worn by players did it actually look sort of OK and people start to come around to it. Certainly, the first image of it that was distributed was a bit of an own goal (not that such things exist in hockey, but still). Now I'll leave the reader to draw their own conclusions on whether they like it or not, but it left me reflecting on the second such 'ugh, I don't like that at all' moment in a matter of months after the unveiling of the new Bradford home strip three months ago. Just as now, I instantly didn't like it and then came round an hour or two later. I think I am becoming more reactionary as I get older and perhaps it's a lesson in not blurting out on facebook how much it's rubbish and taking an hour or two to think about things a bit.

The fact that I like it because it appears to be more claret and amber than red and yellow is entirely coincidental. Honest

Predictions

One good thing about being home this time is I'll get to see two football matches this time, not just one. I suspect, given the Carling Cup match with Nottingham Forest is only the day after I land, I might still be a bit sleepy - not that that's any different to normal games at Valley Parade, ba-dum-tish. Next Saturday sees the visit of Stevenage in the league, so I guess it's time to do one of those famously bad prediction things that were always so entertaining to look back at at nine months later on warwick.blogs. Match reports will follow, just for old times sake.

I think any of the top four are interchangeable; both Bradford and Shrewsbury look good in defence and midfield, but light up front, Gillingham and Rotherham have proven forwards but lack elsewhere in their teams. It all depends who is the one left without a chair when the music stops next May. I think Oxford are going to do well and can attract crowds that can fund another playoff push. Wycombe have largely the same squad that got them promoted two years ago and Bury are admirably run on a shoestring. On the fringes, Chesterfield will reap the benefit of not having to play at the horrendously decrepit Saltergate any more, and any Micky Adams side is hard to beat. They flirted briefly with the playoffs last time.

Gillingham, as mentioned, will do the best of the relegated teams. Southend and Stockport are either still in the clutches of financial catastophe or slowly recovering. I think Accrington's bubble has to burst eventually, and it's also disappointing to see Crewe fans are unhappy with Dario Gradi, who once could do no wrong; as we all know, a month is a long time in football and so five years ago is a lifetime. At the bottom, the loss of winger Adomah and striker O'Flynn are going to do for Barnet, and I think that Macclesfield have been on borrowed time for some years now; the sad passing of Keith Alexander during last season is going to highlight just how very good he was at getting the best out of limited resources.

1. Shrewsbury
2. Bradford
3. Rotherham
4. Gillingham
5. Oxford
6. Wycombe
7. Bury
8. Chesterfield
9. Port Vale
10. Lincoln
11. Morecambe
12. Southend
13. Stevenage
14. Aldershot
15. Northampton
16. Cheltenham
17. Torquay
18. Burton
19. Accrington
20. Stockport
21. Crewe
22. Hereford
23. Barnet
24. Macclesfield

Homecoming

Only six days till I get on a plane again as I come home on holiday for a couple of weeks. I have a wedding to attend on the middle Sunday for one of my former PhD labmates and his significant other; I think they are at least partially responsible for me being out here after visiting them in Ottawa three years ago. It'll be fun to see my nephew now he is fully able to hold a conversation with me on the webcam, before he gets bored.

The odd thing is that it could well be the last time I get to visit what I would call 'home'. The weekly phonecall yesterday revealed that at very long last, a firm offer on the house has been made. Mum and Dad have been looking to move for some time now (about four years I think) to somewhere that requires less maintenance, and have now found somewhere to make an offer on. In Huddersfield of all places, deep behind enemy lines as far as footballing allegiances go.



I mean, really!

If The Cap Fits

I wrote a few weeks ago about the culmination of the NHL playoffs and how it was likely the champion Chicago Blackhawks were likely to be broken up this coming summer. Today saw probably the last moves to fit themselves under next year's salary cap; the changes have been far more widespread than any Chicago fan would have thought about two months ago.

Here's last season's playoff lineup:

Forwards:
Kane-Toews-Byfuglien
Kopecky-Sharp-Hossa
Ladd-Bolland-Versteeg
Eager-Madden-Brouwer

Defence:
Keith-Seabrook
Hjalmarsson-Campbell
Hendry-Sopel

Goal:
Niemi
Huet

Lots of goalscoring depth, role players, grit, old heads. You name it, this team had it. Except a reliable goalie, perhaps. It became obvious not long into last season they'd be the team to beat. But winning has created a number of problems. First of all, a bit of history. Chicago last made the Stanley Cup final in 1992. There then followed a long spell of finishing among the also rans in the league as owner Bill Wirtz refused to play top dollar for players. The crowds stayed away and so he had to keep the salary at a minimum to minimise the debt, and so the vicious circle went around again. Eventually, such a prolonged period of failure reaped rewards in the draft. Teams pick in reverse order according to their final position in the regular season. Along came, among others, Patrick Kane (1st overall, 2007), Jonathan Toews (3rd overall 2006), Duncan Keith (54th overall, 2002), Brent Seabrook (12th overall, 2003) and others. Entry level contracts can only be signed up to a league maximum. Bonuses for performance can be added, but count against the salary cap if they have to be paid out. So it comes to pass that Chicago must pay $4.1m out in bonuses against a salary cap of $59.4m this season. That's comparable to a couple of third line forwards, a top 6 forward or, a top 4 defenceman. There's problem number 1.

Problem number two came as the entry level contracts of Kane, Toews, and Keith expired this season. Entry level contracts can only be three years long; after such time the player and team must re-negotiate with the protection of draft picks if they move to another team if agreement can't be reached. Kane's average cap salary went from $3.7 to $6.3m, Toews from $2.8m to $6.3m, and Keith's from $1.48m to $5.5m almost $10m more. Room would have to be made against the salary cap. In Chicago's case, they had a number of the supporting cast that would be attractive to other sides. They also had a pair of contractual albatrosses; French goalie Cristobal Huet ($5.6m a year), and defenceman Brian Campbell ($7.1m a year, roughly $2m more than he's worth). Both were 'shopped' among the other 29 sides. No takers. Chicago will bury Huet in the minor league AHL team, on full salary but not counting against the salary cap of the senior team. That's $5m of the $10m back. Campbell also has a no move clause in his contract, so they're stuck with him. It can't be reiterated enough just how much trouble those contracts are causing.

Instead, they had to move the supporting cast. Kris Versteeg and a prospect were traded to Toronto for Viktor Stalberg and two prospects; this was a net salary dump of $2.2m. Versteeg's contract is somewhat inflated seeing as there was an administrative bungle by the Blackhawks with his (and other) qualifying offers last season which essentially meant he was an unrestricted, rather than restricted free agent and so he had to be tendered a second, higher offer lest he sign for another team. As we'll see, every $250,000 here and there would become so very important. In the same week, playoff warhorse Dustin Byfuglien (11 goals in the playoffs), Ben Eager and Brent Sopel were traded to the useless Atlanta Thrashers (I mean, what sort of a reward is that?!) for fourth line forward Marty Reasoner and a prospect. That was a net salary dump of about $4.2m. Andrew Ladd was then traded to Atlanta for prospect defenceman Ivan Vishnevskiy and a draft pick that worked out as a further $1.5m salary dump after Ladd agreed a contract with Atlanta. Fourth line centre John Madden's $2.75m a year contract was not renewed. So far, so bad for the third and fourth lines.

We've just touched on the RFA Ladd being moved because a new contract would be too high. So we came to RFAs Niklas Hjalmarsson and Antti Niemi. Hjalmarsson earned $0.8m last season as a player who could play long minutes and keep the door shut as Campbell wandered up the ice in attack. He was due a hefty raise. At this point, enter stage left, the General Manager of the San Jose Sharks, Doug Wilson. Wilson submitted an offer sheet to Hjalmarsson of $3.5m a year. Chicago had a week to either match the offer, or accept the draft picks (a 1st and a 3rd, determined by the contract value) as compensation. Chicago matched the offer, thus swallowing up some of their hard won cap space into the bargain. A very very sneaky thing for Wilson to do to hobble one of their main rivals, but he is paid to make SJ the best team in the conference and get them to their first cup final. As a result, the only just acquired Reasoner (he was there about two weeks!) was then traded to Florida for AHL/NHL inbetweener Jeff Taffe in another net salary dump of $0.7m.

Negotiations then turned to Niemi. He also earned $0.8m last season. The two sides couldn't agree a contract, and the arbitrator set a value of $2.75m a year for one year. Chicago balked at this and said 'on your way, then' and signed the erratic former Dallas goalie Marty Turco on a one year deal at $1.3m. They now have just short of $3m to fill four or five roster spots with youngsters in the system to have a squad of 23 on opening night. In the meantime, it would surprise no-one at all if Niemi surfaced in San Jose to former a goalie tandem there with fellow Finn Antero Niittymaki .They had let Evgeni Nabokov go following the shellacking he got against Canada in the Olympics, after which he was not the same. Very very clever on Wilson's part if that was the reason he made the offer sheet to Hjalmarsson.

So the Chicago Blackhawks of 2010-11 then, with slightly speculative line combinations:

Forward:
Kane-Toews-Brouwer
Sharp-Kopecky-Hossa
Stalberg-Bolland-Beach
Skille-Dowell-Bickell

Defence:
Keith-Seabrook
Hjalmarsson-Campbell
Hendry-Vishnevskiy

Goal:
Turco
Crawford

They have two good forward lines, two good defensive pairs and yet at the same time huge question marks in goal. A first championship in 49 years followed by complete destruction of their forward corps. They are still a useful looking team on paper, but are much much weakened as compared to this time last year, thus ensuring the Western Conference is a bit more spread out this year. Lesson to other teams: Calgary GM Darryl Sutter may be a bit of laughing stock at present for some, er, interesting moves in the last year, but he almost never gets involved in free agent frenzy on July 1st for fear of ending up with a Huet or a Campbell on the books for several years. Others should take note!

Here It Goes Again

I found out this morning when I get to do my English tests. Having applied on the 7th, I was beginning to get worried about the lack of a reply/notification, especially considering the next test date was this coming Saturday. Imagine the flutter when an email landed at 10am this morning entitled 'IELTS Test Date', and the temper outsburst when it revealed I am scheduled for September 25th. Given it takes two weeks to process results, it means I can't submit till mid October, roughly 3.5 months after I wanted it done by. This also means that my police certificate will be invalid and now I'll have to shell out for a new one. I should be really annoyed, but there have been a couple of very sad things happen in the lab in the last week that put bureacratic arsery into the proper context in the grand scheme of things, and that it's not worth getting too wound up about.

So instead, another musical interlude, and an attempt to turn a negative into a positive; the video amuses me, and the song contains the lyrics "just when you think that you're in control/just when you think that you've got a hold/just when you get on a roll/here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again" which fits the moment.

Living in Glass Houses

Another demonstration of the power of nature on the prairies. Monday lunchtime was developing like just another monday, though with the forecast of thunderstorms after a week of hot weather. And then at 1:45pm, we started getting hail the size of golf balls. 'You exaggerate' I hear you say. I'll just point you here, first. In those photos are a couple of the greenhouse on top of the building I work in, lying in ruins. At the time this is happening, I am on the floor below in one of the instrumentation rooms. Here's a video showing just how quickly it happened.

Mile High Club

September 19th, 2010. I shall be spending my Sunday afternoon here. I booked my flight today, and my friend who now works in Denver has bought the tickets, for somewhere behind the goal to the left. All that remains is to buy the jersey and I'm all set, and I'll be doing that after I've finished this post. I'm like a small child at Christmas, after 20 years of watching games at anti-social hours on a Sunday night, or more recently on a Sunday, I now get to see one in the flesh. EXCITED!

Photo from bradleygee, flickr

Four More Years

Well, as far as World Cup finals go, that was almost predictable. All too often the final of a tournament features two sides who are trying very hard not to lose, rather than win the game; it was desperately poor to watch, although I think the 1990 final was marginally worse than this one. Ultimately, the Spanish deserved to win because they were at least trying to win (when not diving), rather than the Dutch who seemed content, as they have been through most of the tournament, to hack the other side down and persistently foul. And dive. 'We wanted to play beautiful football' said Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk. Yeah, right.

Referee Howard Webb has borne the brunt of criticism from both sides tonight, but what else was he to do? He was put in an almost impossible position by two teams who were out to bend the rules to breaking point. The non-sending-off of Nigel De Jong was inexplicable, but that aside he did well to get to 110 minutes before sending a player off, so frequent were the yellow cards in the first half. I'm amazed that Mark van Bommel managed to go the whole way through the tournament without being sent off, such was the persistent foul conduct on his behalf.

All in all, I'm slightly disappointed by the World Cup. Granted, I've only seen games at weekends and highlights in the evenings. I've seen very few memorable games. though that could be for reasons just mentioned. England started indifferently and got worse, France and Italy were pale shadows of themselves. Ghana apart, the African sides disappointed. The standard of free kicks and dead balls was nothing short of appalling. On the plus side, the tournament has been well organised and generally well attended, thus debunking the patronising fears of the 'quality press' back home. I even got used to the vuvuzelas.

Electric Shock

Continuing the generally cantankerous theme for the week, it's now for the monthly gripe about my electricity bill. Living in a large building means everything is metered. So the actual electricity used this month: $6.20. Meter reading fee: $4.00. Administration charge: $9.75. Tax: $1.00

Less than a third of my bill is actually what I use. Grrr!

Media Matters

On the way home last night I had to get some more passport type photos for my application to take various English tests. Having done that in the local equivalent of Boots across the highway from where I live (into the bargain the worst photos of me you've ever seen, and goodness knows they have some competition), I popped next door for some odds and ends in the supermarket. In doing so, I was accosted by a reporter from CBC local radio who would like to ask me a few questions.

I duly obliged for 90 seconds worth of answering questions about mosquitos, do I think about them when I'm going out in hot weather, do I think about the West Nile virus and malaria and so on. Several variants of 'no, not really' and 'I'm from the UK and we don't have them so I don't think about it' later and I was on my way again, thinking nothing would come of it.

The guy who I watch football with twittered me this morning to tell me I had been on the radio as he was driving to work. I wonder what the people listening thought? "Ignorant johnny foreigner" most probably!

Moving the Goalposts

It's been a while since I've posted about the permanent residence application. Safe to say that today I'm not a happy camper about what happened today. Over the last few weeks, items have slowly been arriving, and last Thursday I photocopied most of the Canadian related documents; a nice thing to be doing on Canada Day. The last things I needed were letters from bosses past and present describing what I do/did for them, a statement about competence in English, and the money for the first stage of the application.

Canada Post managed to completely fail to deliver the letter from Warwick; so much so that it ended up back there today, four weeks later, marked 'undeliverable'. Odd, considering that although the building management don't accept items on your behalf, Canada Post leave a card for you to go to the nearest post office to pick it up. I have checked the email I sent with the address in to my old boss and it's just as it should be. I had declared said letter lost a week and my last boss was sending another today by courier so not so bad. It had been my intention to send the application by now but a week's delay was nothing to get worried about. My current bosses' letter was on my desk when I arrived at work this morning. So it was time to check the website once more before picking a lunchtime to go into town to get a bank draft for the money.

And there, writ large on the CIC website was the proclamation that ALL candidates now have to take an English test, irrespective of whether it's your mother tongue and whether you've spent 21 years in the English education system. Or more, if you consider where I work. Digging around on the website revealed the following: I must pay $280 for a day of testing where I demonstrate my ability to read, speak, listen, and write (stop laughing at the back). The tests are once a month, so the earliest I can do it is the last of the month. Results arrive two weeks later. That would be a six week delay, except I am in the UK at that time and I won't get back for another 10 days. Add in time to check the application etc, and it'll be the end of August before I send it; that's a matter of days before the Police certificate that I spent weeks waiting for becomes invalid (it must be less than 3 months old when submitted). All told, it's a delay of nearly 2 months.

So from a situation where I was submitting with what I thought was plenty of time before my work permit expired, I am now possibly in the situation of either a) having to ask for a short extension or b) leaving the country at the end of February and then hanging on in the UK till the application was approved. I feel reasonably confident the former would be doable, because the logistics of the latter (leaving furniture/belongings at friends places, etc) would be a thorough pain. Almost as much of a pain as this confounded application.

Background Checks

Another immigration document arrives. The police in the UK have sent their certificate that says I have kept my nose clean for the first 30 years of my life. Many many many thanks to building management for just ramming it in my mail box, despite the 'printed material inside' warning. It's going to have to spend a day or three under a pile of chemistry textbooks. It's nice to see I don't show up on their computer!!

England Expects...

...too much sometimes. A 1-1 draw today was not so bad. On another day, they would have won 2-0 with something to spare. Yes, the goal conceded by Green was not very good - but I conceded one far worse than that on Tuesday night - and will probably see him replaced by David James, but the USA rarely looked like scoring; quite something with Glen Johnson and old man Carragher in the back four. A football forum I read and post in, which is usually the epitome of thoughtful and considered is full today of 'that was terrible/appalling/expletive deleted. When did England ever steamroller a team in the first match of a World Cup? Have people forgotten 1990, 2002, or 2006 which were bloody appalling! They were better than the French yesterday, who were dire and who we could easily beat in a potential quarter-final.

Teamwise: England have a collection of bloody useless wingers, and someone who can cross a ball is needed. Rooney was marked out of the game and the Lampard was anonymous. Defence was OK given the lack of pace or ability on the ball on show. I'd rather see Crouch than Heskey; yes he set up a goal, but did you ever really think he was going to score in that 1-on-1? Crouch is less mobile, and possibly less good in the air despite being taller, but his record shows he can put the ball in the net.

Watching experience: the regular Saturday morning venue was, unbelievably, so full that there was a queue outside at 10:20am, more than two hours before kickoff. After nine months of trekking down there (it's a 45 minute trip from where I live) to be able to pick my/our spot without any difficulty, it was a bit of a shock to see 30 people in a queue and the inside full of the ENG-GER-LUND crowd. A quick alteration of plans and watching at someone else's place was not so bad after all, and the walk back into town was agreeable given the severely nice day.

Daily Fail

Just what is the point of the Daily Mail? To peddle bile-filled unconcealed racism, it seems, if you follow the link here. I don't know what school of thought is worse: that someone in the editorial staff saw fit to air a point of view that died out with TV's Love Thy Neighbour, or that it's deliberately planted to provoke responses. Or that eating disorders are funny as well.

Given the Mail's historical editorial stances, I'm not surprised. Depressed and saddened, yes. But not surprised.

Orange Crushed

Yes, it's a lame pun, and I'm thinking from a deflated point of view rather than a heavy defeat. The Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup with a 4-3 overtime win in Philadelphia to win the best-of-seven series 4-2. For a third year in a row the final was won in the opposition's barn, which was surprising given how weakly Chicago had played in the two previous games in Philadelphia.

Patrick Kane's winner was greeted with silence in the arena, primarily because he was the only person in the building to see the puck had gone in. Only when he was wheeling away like David Pleat on skates and running down the ice to meet his goalie was it obvious what had happened. Game highlights can be seen below.


If truth be told, goalie Michael Leighton saves that shot 95 times out of 100. But such are the margins of winning what is an awesome looking trophy; lets not forget Philadelphia finished 18th out of 30 on a points basis and only qualified for the playoffs in a game 82 shootout where the Rangers inexplicably chose Olli Jokinen as one of the shooters.

Chicago have been the best all-round team in the league this year - yes, Washington scored a shed load of goals but have no defence or goalie to speak of - and for the Flyers to win would have been a travesty of sporting justice. Such things happen, but it's better when they don't. Chicago went on a run during the season of nine consecutive wins where they scored four or more goals, demonstrating their credentials as the number one. Captain JonathanT oews led by example, and though he had a quiet final series, the three rounds before that he demonstrated he was worthy of winning the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP. World Junior gold, World senior gold, Olympic gold (and a goal in the final), Conn Smythe winner and Stanley Cup champion. At the age of 22. Whither now for him?

Yes, they have spotty goaltending, but in Keith, Seabrook, Toews, Hossa, Sharp and Kane they have a lot of talent, with numerous backup players like Ladd, Byfuglien, Bolland, Brouwer, Versteeg, Madden, Campbell and Hjalmarsson. The team won't be the same next year as Kane, Keith and Toews are due large pay rises with new contracts and the current roster will bust the salary cap by conservatively several million dollars, so some players will have to move on (from a Flames point of view, Versteeg or Sharp turning up at the Saddledome would be nice). But until then, they should enjoy the moment.