Things and stuff

Japanese Samurai Subs

2009-11-18T14:05:00.001Z

Wow how cool is this :

After 60 years in a watery Hawaiian grave, two World War II-era Japanese attack submarines have been discovered near Pearl Harbor, marine archaeologists announced today.

Specifically designed for a stealth attack on the U.S. East Coast--perhaps targeting Washington, D.C., and New York City--the "samurai subs" were fast, far-ranging, and in some cases carried folding-wing aircraft, according to Dik Daso, curator of modern military aircraft at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, speaking in the new National Geographic documentary Hunt for the Samurai Subs.

Brilliant blog post about lower league rugby

2009-11-09T13:21:00.001Z

Saw this over at My Waterloo Rugby, hope it’s the first of many posts :

So why did I fall out of love with the game? The game started to lose its mojo a few months into our second season in National Division 2 back in 2004. The sense of adventure of visiting away games ceased to exist, many of these newer club grounds we found ourselves visiting lacked charm, many purely sterile. These new grounds don’t reflect the warmth of the local community, they reflect a cold ambition to win and succeed to progress, there was no joy or character and so my interest waned. Give me a Wharfedale over Doncaster any day; these are places where the true spirit of rugby lies, not in the concrete slabs of the new Coventry ground; you walk into places like Rosslyn Park and you feel the heritage and esprit de corps come up and shake you warmly by the hand. In Nottingham three years ago, my love of rugby hit rock bottom; there we were, 300 of us, in a football stadium on a Sunday afternoon, the moon had a better atmosphere that day. I’m sure any first time visitor to the game that day will have ensured it was also their last; no bar, no banter and they had one of those wretched over sized cartoon mascots; not a parrot or a squid or something vaguely amusing for the kids but some bloke adorned as an eight foot mobile phone. And then at half-time the Nottingham people entertained us with cheerleaders….

People know I have an abundant hatred of the use of cheerleaders in this country, if you go to a grid-iron game in the States you’ll see buxom blondes being thrown in the air and performing multiple silhouettes before being caught by their peers (note to self – can we learn any techniques from the Dallas Cowboy cheerleading coaches? Look up ‘awesome cheerleading stunts’ on “YouTube”- get that girl in our line-outs) but here we have to make do with 14 year olds in the middle of winter waving a couple of pom-poms; it isn’t attractive, it isn’t rousing, in fact I find it very creepy….

….And that was the end of the love affair. Since then the numbers of games I attended could be counted on one hand.

Wow

2009-11-07T23:51:00.000Z

How did that happen? Hayes beat Valuev!!! Bonkers. Utterly amazing sporting moment. Outstanding.

Eusebio on Goodison Park "Best stadium in my playing life"

2009-11-06T09:57:00.001Z

Last night was pretty depressing but loved this quote from Eusebio

Eusebio on Goodison Park: "Sorry, I don't speak good English. But today for me, for my family, it's a good day, for Benfica to play here. This stadium for me is the best stadium in my playing life."

Everton were swept aside in the second half, Benfica looked spot on whilst we looked clueless and frantic. A game crying out for Phil Neville it has to be said. The next two games now have a fair bit of pressure on them but BATA and AEK drawing helps.

Lord of the Rings movie characters map

2009-11-03T09:32:00.001Z

This is quality from XKCD

A graph of character interactions in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

Waterloo V Hull Ionians

2009-11-03T09:23:00.001Z

Found this picture of Waterloo scoring the winning try again Hull Ionians a few weeks ago (picture by Ed Thomas).

Everton's treatment room xi

2009-10-26T20:48:00.000Z

Everton are depressingly beatable at the moment but ultimately it's not surprising when our treatment room xi is, apart from needing a keeper, looking fantastic. Look at the team we had missing for the weekend against Bolton

Everton Treatment Room XI - 26/10/09

Hibbert - Yobo - Jagielka - Baines

Pienaar - Arteta - Neville - Bilyaletdinov

Yakubu - Vaughan

with Anichebe and Osmanalso fighting for a place too

sporting depression

2009-10-26T19:47:00.000Z

Some pleasant viewing to take away the blues (and scarlets and a myrtles)

Fame at last

2009-10-23T23:09:00.002+01:00

Last weekend I phone the Danny Baker Show in order to try and save Goodison and Blundellsands (home of Everton FC and Waterloo RUFC respectively) from his totalitarian demolition crews....I was less than successfull but Hey, it was early on a Saturday morning, I didn't do too bad.

Listen here : Danny Baker Show Podcast

Evertonians don't forget their own

2009-10-20T22:31:00.001+01:00

Just a very quick notes, a mate of mine is off to Lisbon tomorrow with T-shirt highlighting the continuing hopes we all have for the safe return of Madelaine McCann.

We also have issued a special purple 3rd kit in memorial for little Rhys Jones (and as a fund raiser for the city-wide Liverpool Unites charity).

Footy fans are sometimes viewed as neanderthals but things like this remind us that we do not forget our own.

Who were the first Liverpool FC players to play for England?

2009-10-20T17:44:00.001+01:00

Interesting trivia question there “Who were the first Liverpool FC players to play for England?”. It is of course a trick question because 4 players of Liverpool Football Club (as in Rugby Football) took part in the very first rugby international in 1871.

Step forward J. H. Clayton, A. Lyon, E. Tobin & E. Kewley. Liverpool Football Club players representing their country a full 7 years before Everton were formed and 13 years before Everton’s offspring stole your club’s name.

Almost as good is the one “Name three Russians to play for Everton”...the answer, of course, being “Bilyaletdinov, Kanchelskis and Gethathibbertoff” or “Name three Israelis to play for Liverpool....Cohen, Rosenthal and Judas Barmby”.

Same clubs, different rules - Richmond take on Barnes (again)

2009-10-20T13:36:00.000+01:00

National League Division 2 South Fixtures

Would dearly love to go to a Richmond V Barnes fixture :

Saturday, 07 November 2009

Barking v Westcombe Park, 15:00

Bridgwater & Albion v Rosslyn Park, 15:00

Canterbury v Southend, 15:00

Dings Crusaders v Worthing, 15:00

Ealing v Henley, 15:00

Lydney v Clifton, 15:00

Richmond v Barnes, 15:00

Why? Because Barnes and Richmond played the first ever game of association football. I’ve been to Richmond RUFC’s lovely homely ground...it was the same day I went to Twickenham and if I was brutally honest I wish I’d plumped for spending the full afternoon at Richmond. Lovely club, very similar to Waterloo.......just a hell of a lot posher. ;)

Where do Premier League players come from

2009-10-09T13:14:00.001+01:00

Superb little gadget from the BBC showing all the current Premiership squads and where they are from :

Where do your Premier League team’s players come from?

Nice little cluster of home grown players for Everton as well as our foreign leagion.

Timmmyyyyyyy

2009-10-02T09:02:00.001+01:00

Good old Tim :

Everton midfielder Tim Cahill dedicated his winning goal in the Europa League game against BATE Borisov to the victims of Tuesday's Pacific tsumani.

The Australian international mimed rowing a canoe after scoring in the second half of the match in Belarus. "I just felt in my heart it was the right thing to do," he told ESPN. "Me and my family are from Samoa and I've got a lot of family there that got caught in the tsunami. A lot of people are going through a hard time."

Rescue workers on the Samoan islands and Tonga are continuing to search for survivors after the tsunami which has so far claimed 149 confirmed victims.

Other than that it was a tremendous performance from Everton given the line-up. Yobo and Rodwell going down with flu (and you can bet the others were feeling ropey too). Hibbert in central defence, Osman as skipper.

Bit of a kick in the pants conceding the goal like that but chuffed they didn’t let their heads drop. 6 points is a great start to the group, especially with AEK rallying to beat Benfica.

The Yak is back?

2009-09-24T13:36:00.001+01:00

Great to see Yakubu score last night and especially nice to see him make a beeline to Mick Rathbone (Everton’s head physio) and hug him. Pretty good goal too...he just makes goal scoring look so easy.

Hull looked very poor it has to be said...very funny to see Barmby get mugged in the build-up to our 4^th goal.

Osman was captain last night, it’d be great if he can pull his form round as he does looking he’s sleep-walking his way through some games. Was good against Blackburn and bagged a goal last night so let’s hope for more of the same

So the last 7 days basically pan out as : Everton 11 – 0 AthensBlackburnHull United. Can’t complain about that.

COYB COYB COYB COYB!!!!!!

Everton v AEK Athens or football spectating as performance art

2009-09-18T08:35:00.002+01:00

Everton 4 - 0 AEK Athens

Well, not sure if that Everton being ace or Athens being poo. Apart fron a 10 minute spell in the first half where the blues were on the back foot we basically destroyed them from the word go. Very rare I, as a totally pessimistic bluenose, feel totally confident about a game. They looked very balanced in midfield with Fellaini simply stepping in and winning the ball then moving it along. At the back Distin looked solid and Gosling played well at right back (although it's difficult to tell if they just didn't have anything to test them).

One of the main points to emerge from the game was the totally superfluous extra officials. Felt sorry for the two goal-linesmen...they just stood there like lemons for the entire game.

Other then the only other thing to report was the Greek fans and there 'football spectating as performance art' co-ordinated craziness. Very distracting with the game ebbing to it's conclusion but you have to take your hat off to them. Superb support for their team. at the full time whistle they unfurled an Everton banner with our crest on and "Forever Blue - Athens Branch" written on it (how to win friends and influence people).

Top work by Everton as they struggle to get some rhythm in this stop start up & down season opening.

Oh dear, oh dear Ireland

2009-09-16T19:07:00.001+01:00

The All Blacks have their haka, the English generally pout at the camera...the Irish prance around like McFly wannabes

Ireland launch their new rugby kit

It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your moral code

2009-09-14T20:31:00.000+01:00

I like this novel approach to piracy protection :

It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your moral code

Anyone who attempts to direct Batman using the "glide" button finds that the feature has been disabled, causing the Caped Crusader to plunge to his death.

One gamer who got his hands on an early copy of the PC version, which is released this week, reported the apparent bug in a hastily-typed post in the game's official forum, complaining that Batman kept dying in a cloud of poisonous gas.

"I've got a problem when it's time to use Batman's glide in the game. When I hold , like it's said to jump from one platform to another, Batman tries to open his wings again and again instead of gliding. So he fels down in a poisoning gas. If somebody could tel me, what should I do there," he wrote.

But rather than sympathy or tips from other players, he received a ticking off from an employee of Eidos, the developer behind the game.

"The problem you have encountered is a hook in the copy protection, to catch out people who try and download cracked versions of the game for free," he wrote.

"It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your moral code."

Unbelievable shot from Roger Federer

2009-09-14T08:08:00.000+01:00

Just when you think Federer can't get any better he does this :

That's just awesome

Lonely Planet Magazine

2009-08-17T19:52:00.002+01:00

Sent this to the Lonely Planet Magazine after they labelled Anfield a 'cathedral' and Goodison Park a 'shed' in their city mini-guide section

Sir, I read your magazine with interest each month and so was particularly excited to see my own city, Liverpool, featured in your mini-guides this month.

Alas you saw fit to label stoop to gaining lazy, easy laughs at the expense of Goodison Park, home of Everton FC. I presume this stems from a lack of editorial judgement on your part and a mischevious streak on the part of your correspondant Richard Vaughan. For the record Goodison Park is one of the few old style British football grounds hosting top flight football, whilst other grounds opt for concrete and steel and modern razzamataz Goodison still retains a traditional feel.

It's worth noting that Everton remain locally owned whilst other club have been taken over by foreign billionaires. We mightn't have huge budgets, corporate investment or McDonalds in the corner of the stadium (like the "cathedral" your piece recomends visiting) but the club has, in fact, been the only antidote the big money cartel dominating the game in recent years...much more in keeping, I'd say, with the Lonely Planet ethos.....still at least your readers will be able to fuel up on Big Macs when they visit.

Regards

Stuart Brandwood

Hooray for Hollinwood

2009-08-12T18:52:00.000+01:00

Got to love this sort of anonymous mischief. Hats off to whoever has done it

A recreation of the iconic Hollywood sign, which nestles in the Californian hills, has appeared on a grass verge by the side of the M60 - in Hollinwood.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the sign, which at 3ft (0.9m) high is dwarfed by its famous cousin.

An Oldham Council spokesman said it was "definitely not a council initiative".

The sign, 4.5 miles (7.2km) away from Manchester, appeared on Monday by the side of the eastbound carriageway of the motorway between junctions 21 and 22.

News of its appearance is spreading and local ward councillor Keith Pendlebury was set to visit the new attraction on Tuesday.

But he admitted he was also in the dark about the origin of the wooden lettering.

"There was a scheme proposed to put an iconic piece of art at the Hollinwood roundabout - but I don't think this is it," he told BBC News.

Lescott makes a formal transfer request

2009-08-11T15:04:00.002+01:00

So we got from this

Joleon Lescott was cheered every time he touched the ball as Everton beat Malaga 2-1 in a pre-season friendly at Goodison Park.

The defender, who has told the club he wants to leave, could have expected a tough night, but his name received the loudest applause before the game.

The 26-year-old played the full 90 minutes and left the field with the Gwladys Street fans singing his name.

to this

Everton have turned down a transfer request from Joleon Lescott, who is being targeted by Manchester City. The Goodison Park outfit have knocked back bids of £15m and £18m from City for the centre-half.

"I have always said that we are not selling any players and that has not changed," Toffees boss David Moyes told the club's website. Lescott, 26, is currently on international duty with England ahead of a friendly against the Netherlands.

But he played in a friendly for Everton in a 2-1 win over Malaga last Friday and was cheered throughout by the Merseyside club's fans. But, if the supporters were trying to urge Lescott to stay, their attempts appear to have fallen on deaf ears as he has put his desire to leave the club in writing.

So he plays in a game and is cheered at every turn (despite him informing the manager he wanted to leave) then scuttles off on international duty and whilst away makes a formal transfer request. You can only assume that he's one cold-hearted, mercenary, coward. Until today I wouldn't have bought that for a second...totally out of character.

He'll get huge amounts of cash at City and will no doubt be desperately looking forward to participating in their 2nd round Carling Cup tie. Ah well that's modern footy for you eh.

Bassong's ban...earliest St Totteringham's day ever?

2009-08-11T09:00:00.005+01:00

So Spurs beat liverpool with a banned Bassong in the side, liverpool quite rightly cry foul, Tottenham relegated (or let off scot-free if the West Ham "media-darling London club" precedent is followed). Could be interesting though.

Sebastien Bassong is set to make his debut for Tottenham against Liverpool on Sunday despite appearing to serve only one game of a two-match ban.

Bassong, 23, was sent off for Newcastle at the end of last season and missed their final match of the campaign.

Spurs say he has completed his ban by missing Newcastle's match against West Brom on Saturday, even though he signed for the Londoners before that match.

Tottenham insist the ban continued to apply to Newcastle games.

"Sebastien Bassong will be available for selection for our Premier League season opener against Liverpool on Sunday," read a Spurs statement.

"Given he served the first game of his ban against Aston Villa on the final day of the previous campaign as a Newcastle player, it meant the suspension continued to apply to Newcastle games.

"It was therefore satisfied when his former club visited West Brom on the opening day of the Championship season on Saturday."

How can Tottenham possibly say he's available...he was a Spurs player, you buy a banned player he's banned for his next game. No doubt that slimy crook Redknapp will be on the news feigning shocked righteous indignation as usual.

Sunshine on Leith - Hibernian

2009-08-10T14:39:00.001+01:00

This is brilliant

My heart was broken, my heart was broken
Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow
My heart was broken, my heart was broken

You saw it, You claimed it
You touched it, You saved it

My tears are drying, my tears are drying
Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou
My tears are drying, my tears are drying

Your beauty and kindness
Made tears clear my blindness

While I'm worth my room on this earth
I will be with you
While the Chief, puts Sunshine On Leith
I'll thank him for his work
And your birth and my birth.

My heart was broken, my heart was broken
Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow
My heart was broken, my heart was broken

While I'm worth my room on this earth
I will be with you
While the Chief, puts Sunshine On Leith
I'll thank him for his work
And your birth and my birth.

Argentinian league postponed due to debt

2009-08-05T12:37:00.002+01:00

Wow, how massive is this...a whole country's top flight getting mothballed due to debt :

The start of the football season in Argentina has been delayed indefinitely because many of the clubs involved are heavily in debt. The season had been due to kick off on 14 August, but the Argentine Football Association (AFA) said some clubs did not have enough money to pay players.

AFA President Julio Grondona said the situation was "very difficult". Last week, clubs in the second division had the start of their season postponed for similar reasons.

"The executive committee of the AFA resolved unanimously tonight that the championships in all categories should not start on the scheduled dates," said a statement posted on the AFA website late on Tuesday.

The organisation said it was continuing to look for "a substantive solution" to the financial problems facing the clubs and that their decision "will not affect intelligent and dignified meetings to seek a solution satisfactory to both parties".

Unbelievable really...show's you much danger there is of football eating itself alive