Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged

The box set arrived Monday and I watched all sixteen episodes over the course of the last three evenings. And, as usual, it was utterly entrancing and remains the most consistently entertaining TV there is. I start to understand, dimly, how people can become hooked on soaps and lose perspective as I find it very easy to immerse myself in the characters, as if they are old friends who you have invited round for a few days and then they are gone for another year. I couldn’t invest the emotional attachment that I feel when watching the episodes back to back if it was just a weekly drizzle, I need to binge and it’s bliss. Until you get to the last episode and then they are gone for another year, but what a parting it was this season! The final episode was remarkable even amongst the stellar episodes of this and previous series, it produced a satisfactory conclusion but also presaged, what would appear to be inevitable, fall-out in Season 5. Maybe the medical fraternity think the whole thing is a bunch of arse if the medical basis for the stories is flawed, I have no idea about the licence taken with the medical conditions being treated, and I so don’t care. It’s about the people, the people who are ill, the people who are treating the ill people, the people who have a foot in both camps, the people who care and those who don’t care, or do they? It’s so difficult to quantify the huge appear of this series of programs without resorting to psychobabble, which I wish to avoid at all costs, so I won’t attempt to, suffice to say that, given the time, I would have happily sat down and watched every episode. No food, no sleep, a few cigarettes and the occasional coffee.
I will probably start with Series 1 again tonight, I can’t go cold turkey on this stuff.

I’m already backtracking on my Tampa in 6 prediction, not because Game 3 has made it 2-1 to the Phillies but because I want it to go to seven games to get the most out of the series. I heard that the expected ratings for this series were going to be the worst since the Subway series, and I don’t know how that’s working out but this is a great series so far, we’re seeing the running game, the power game, small ball, pitchers bring their A game and good game management but with enough decisions being made that attract debate for it not to go unnoticed. The big fly in the ointment for me is nothing to do with the game but to do with Sky+ and Five, Sky+ has yet to record a complete game, now it was my understanding that it was designed to handle program overruns, probably with input required by the broadcaster. But wherever the failing is, the end result is that I have had to go to the MLB website to find the result of every game so far. And I still love this series.
So the NFL is this side of the pond again, strutting it’s stuff at Wembley. And the point is? Just heard Goddell talking about more than one game over here, either next year or the year after; again, what is the point? I haven’t heard of any talk of expansion or any unhappy franchises that are looking for the door out of their present billet. Wembley can be filled just as easily twice a season as once so you are not providing any additional, meaningful data to a prospective franchise owner. I don’t know the intricacies of the business model but I can’t see the franchise fee for an expansion team originating from this side of the Atlantic so why would you place your team here after you have coughed up a couple of hundred million dollars? I just don’t get it. This is a game that benefits hugely from multiple camera angles and action replay so even if they put a franchise 5 miles down the road I couldn’t see myself going to more than one game.

I saw this component in the latest version of iTunes after I installed it but hadn’t bothered with it until this evening. Clearly something designed to drive sales, it makes recommendations, based on the track you’re playing, for what Apple regards as similar tracks that are not in your library. It hasn’t made any sales yet but I have to admit to being intrigued. Playing ‘And She Was’ by Talking Heads, amongst a fair bit of dross it suggested ‘Psycho Killer’; no great leap there but also ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ by The Clash, not top of my list of Clash songs but getting there but most interesting to me was the last on the list, ‘Come Dancing’ by The Kinks, no sale but definitely getting warmer. Went stone cold on the next track I played though; ‘Landed’ by Ben Folds. Other than more by Ben Folds it offered me nothing I had heard of. Against ‘Road to Hell’ by Chris Rea it offered me plenty I’d heard of but nothing I was remotely interested in.
They claim that the recommendations should get better with time but you have to give it access to your library data which tells it the star ratings you have given the tracks and the number of times a track has been played, so it should have a pretty good base of information to extrapolate from the get go. Gone through a few more tracks and still no sale but keeping me interested.

So the Tampa Bay Rays, clearly not the Devil Rays of a previous incarnation, have booked their place in the World Series, stiffening under pressure from a team that has walked the walk in recent times, and maybe learnt a little about themselves on the journey, the main lesson should be that they are a very good team and no one can say that they are not there on merit. And I hope this is the message that Maddon is preaching to his players and not the vacuous ‘Team of Destiny’ bilge. We only need to go back twelve months to see how a ‘Team of Destiny’ performs when presented with a demonstrably superior team; the Red Sox handed the Rockies their lunch in four straight. Any such comparisons do the Rays an injustice, the Rockies were a good team on a hot streak for the ages, the Rays are a very good team, they were at the All Star break, at the end of the regular season and have continued to show their mettle on their way to the World Series.
It should be a good series, the Phillies ought to offer a good test. I think the pivotal match up will be the Phillies offence, can the Rays pitching control Utley, Howard, Burrell, and maybe Victorino should be in the conversation. I don’t think the Phillies pitching can shut down the Rays bats, unless they can get it to Lidge with a lead, so it’s a matter of whether the Phillies hitters can get their licks in and at least keep it close with the starters on the mound and then look to get at the Rays bullpen. At the risk of looking like a goat by making meaningless predictions I’ll give it to the Rays in 6.

We saw the ability and the limitations of the England players on show tonight, clearly they can play, and despite performances under previous managers, they can play in different formations and tactical approaches. But it also looks like they can’t do it without clear and strong leadership from the bench. Eriksson looked disinterested, McLaren just looked bewildered, Capello just looks like he takes every tactical gaff, piece of poor play or decision that goes against us as a personal affront, he doesn’t just hang his head but becomes animated and whilst there may not be too many opportunities for the players to see what’s going happening on the bench, they will know that they have someone who, appears at least, to care as much as they do about what’s going on and seems to have engendered the confidence in them that he will have answers for them, not just questions. After an opening that was just what every team on the road looks for, an early goal, we let them show their technical ability in the area of the field where it could hurt us, and it did. It was a great goal, but we showed all through the second half that there was no reason why we should have conceded, simply press them 25 yards further up the field, even if the midfield gets a little pulled out of shape, as long as the back four is still in position then the threat should still be dealt with. The expectation was that someone would come a cropper in Minsk and whilst we have overcome this hurdle I suspect we have done it at the cost of lessening the chance of anyone else tripping up by giving a blueprint to other teams going there.
How odd is it to say that Emil Heskey, four goals in 50 appearances, deserves his place ahead of Michael Owen? I have to say I would still have Owen in the squad but you simply can’t start him ahead of Rooney or Heskey at the moment.
That’s it for the next six months as far as qualification games are concerned and it will be interesting to see Capello’s approach to the intervening games, will he want to continue the momentum, will he want to try different tactical approaches, will he feel the need to play other players who might be pushing for a place? Whatever he chooses to do I think more people will be watching than has been the case for many years.

So, farewell, Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin, I see you have finally followed my example and left the RBS group, just such a shame that we are not leaving with the same pension entitlement, well a shame from my perspective at least. Goodwin was a man of his time and his time was up some little while ago and had been surviving on reputation for the last few years. He was one of the executives who put RBS in position to gobble up Nat West when they suffered one of these periodic and inexplicable losses of confidence. As a member of the National Executive Committee of BIFU, or UNIFI, can’t remember what it was calling itself at that time, I met with senior executives of Nat West at the time it was going down the tubes and it was clear that they did not understand what was causing the problem and that the new chairman at the time was clear that times would not be changing for the better if Nat West fell into the hands of RBS. Clearly he was not talking about the shit storm that has come about in recent times, he was talking to the union after all, but about the RBS approach to personnel, as personified by Goodwin and Harvard Business School alum, Gordon Pell. I’m sure he would have had a different approach had he been addressing a shareholders meeting. I still have shares in RBS from sharesave schemes and a pension to come, very soon should I so choose, so you may think that I have a rather ambivalent outlook. But not so, sadly I don’t believe that the current shade of Labour, that has nationalised RBS, has the balls or doctrine to want to force RBS to become more responsive to customers and staff, screw the shareholders in the short term and take the long view. But I guess there is too big a chunk of the national debt going to be tied up in what should be a private institution for HM Govt to be interested in the long haul and forcing a sea change in the country’s banking behemoths approach to Joe Public and small business.
I really can’t imagine that the current RBS staff are going to miss Fred’s turgid video presentations, I know I haven’t, and with the share price enumerated in pence and not pounds I don’t imagine the shareholders will either.
Anyone want to open a book on how long it will be before he has half a dozen new non-executive directorships to bolster his parlous financial position?

If any further proof were needed that confidence is a fragile commodity, and given recent stock market activity we probably don’t, it was demonstrated this afternoon. I couldn’t tell whether is was lack of confidence or over confidence at the outset. The team shouldn’t have been concerned about their reception after the Croatia game so maybe it was over confidence, it certainly looked like everyone was taking an extra touch on the ball and looking for a killer pass and not taking a quick look and if nothing was on, moving the ball with the simple pass and let someone else take a look. The Kazaks quickly showed they were deserving of more respect than I think they were given at the start of the game and had the advantage of unfamiliarity. All this being said we should still have been better than we were in the first half. Shortly into the second half we had done the most important thing, despite still not looking that good, and got a two goal cushion but, thanks to an egregious, chucklehead play by Ashley Cole, we had to wait until the last 15 minutes before seeing that we could still knock the ball around, control the play, control the tempo, have the opposition running around ineffectually and be creative. Hopefully Capello’s English is now good enough to get the virtue of patience and confidence in your teammate’s creative ability across to the team in time for Wednesday’s game.

Oh, errr Missus!! That’s the Frankie Howerd moment out the way. The rubber in question is that wrapped around the wheels of Moto GP bike from next year. And it looks like all of it is going to be supplied by Bridgestone. I don’t like this, I didn’t like it in World Superbike and I don’t much care for it in F1. I have no objection to Bridgestone, I run them on my bike but not through choice, it came with Bridgestone and I have never changed front and back together so, as they need to be matched, each new tyre has been Bridgestone. I just don’t like control tyre rules. There isn’t a control wheel, exhaust, engine management system, suspension or brakes, so why tyres? I suspect that team budget is part of the reason but unless it can be shown to have contributed directly to bigger grids, then I don’t see that it will have added anything to the competition and just limited the rate of development.

It only takes an occasional week like this to remind me why I don’t stump up for newspapers or go out of my way to watch news programs on TV, I still hear a little on the radio on the way to and from work. But I’ve had a couple of days off work this week and been unable to avoid all the guff about some sort of impending financial meltdown? The main reason I’m ticked off at all this exposure is that it made me come as close as I am ever likely to come to having sympathy for politicians. So many people expecting the legislators to enact policy on the fly to resolve a problem that they do not come within spitting distance of understanding. There are as many opinions as there are people in finance, markets and economics, so who are you supposed to consult? On Wake up to Money on Radio Five, some American was set up against a Harvard professor of economics, so presumably someone with some standing, and he is arguing that the financial institutions acquisition of this, so called, toxic debt was a result of government legislation, or lack of it. Not having encyclopaedic knowledge of U.S. legislation I can’t say for certain that there isn’t a law saying don’t put your hand in the fire but I don’t hear about periodic epidemics of burnt fingers. The politicians are struggling to deal with the current situation due to limited understanding of the instruments involved and the nebulous nature of ‘confidence’, and aren’t helped by the siren calls to deliver the shaft to the, ill defined, fat cats. Certainly there are people who have been rewarded for making bad decisions, some in full knowledge of the potential consequences, but to believe that you can bring them to book is sheer folly and means that your eye is off the ball. If you let their institutions go to the wall, they will find new jobs, will their customers find new finance, new savings, new houses? Unsurprisingly I don’t have an answer but I know that the situation has to be dealt with as it stands today, and that probably means, as distasteful as it is, having to deal with some of the people who were responsible for creating it in the first place.

That’s it for the regular baseball season and the end of the fantasy baseball season. Managed to hang on to 6th though it was closer that I expected it would be as I only had 3 players scoring for me for the last couple of days and the guy in 7th got to 77.5 points.
This is my final line for the season;

R; 13 HR; 13 RBI; 14 SB; 10 AVG; 3 W; 2.5 SV: 7 K; 8 ERA; 4 WHIP; 4.5 Total; 79

The league winner had no less than 13 points, of an available 14, in every category except SAVES where he had 5.5 points and won the league by 19.5 points with 126.5 points. I think this is a bit out of the ordinary and in a league where everyone is on it for the whole of the season then you should be in the conversation for the win at around 110 points. So that’s only about 30 points I need to find then!
As late as mid-July I was in 10th place and had been struggling to get much above there for quite a while so I’m reasonably happy with the steady progression I made over the last two and a half months, most of which came from the pitching. This is something of a validation of not drafting pitching early on, but not complete validation as I had more success spot starting pitchers once their form became evident and if I adopt the same strategy next year then I might have to wait until mid season to make it work and the league could be gone again by that time. Hindsight shows that I made a couple of major errors with the starting pitching, sticking with Harang too long and dumping Lester too early. But the best case scenario, ditching Harang for Nolasco in, say, early June and hanging onto Lester may have been enough to get me to 4th but no higher.
I certainly miss the day to day involvement, looking for form players or spot starters, always having to make roster changes for Monday & Thursday games, checking the scores from the previous night, first thing next morning and later in the day, checking how things had changed in the categories relative to the other teams. Not the same by any means, but I’ve started thinking about next years draft by downloading all the final player rankings and the team lineups for the teams that finished ahead of me, I’ll be looking very closely at the league winners team, and will start drawing up a spreadsheet with a provisional draft order for next year.