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.