Unfinished Monkey Business

Update

2010-01-21T08:51:00.000-08:00

Not blogged for a little while now, mainly due to the fact that i haven't had the motivation. However, hopefully in the next few weeks i'll find the time to do some writing and get it up for you all (or if anyone even reads this) to have a look at and let me know what you all think. That sounds dreadfully hopeful, but hey, what's the point on being negative?

UFM.

Tooth Fairy Wherabouts Discovered!

2009-09-18T11:46:00.001-07:00

Well it's official! I have actually discovered the whereabouts as to where the elusive Tooth Fairy takes everyones teeth. She (or he perhaps, the gender is still uncertain although popular culture tends to point towards the feminine side of things) resides or at least conducts her business from a small shop ironically called 'The Tooth Fairy' on Bridge Street in Dunfermline in Fife, East Scotland.

Not much is known about the shop except for that it now dispells any previous myths that the Tooth Fairy actually lodged inbetween Death and Mother Nature in Never Never Land... The white stuff you can see in the window is not actually 'white wash' commonly used in closed down buildings, but it is actually fairy dust, which isn't actually dusty at all, but resembles more of a cloud like texture and appearance.

It is not known why the Tooth Fairy chose Dunfermline to conduct her official business from, but we have it on good authority that it was definitely not because of the lingerie shop, 'Sexy Little Numbers' being next door.

Jay-Z - Encore (Live)

2009-09-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

Jay-Z - Run This Town & Dirt Off Your Shoulder

2009-09-17T06:09:00.001-07:00

Coldplay - Fix You (Live)

2009-09-17T06:09:00.000-07:00

Coldplay - Life in Technicolour II (Live)

2009-09-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

Why Grandparents shouldn't be allowed to shop for Grandchildren's presents...

2009-09-14T07:12:00.001-07:00

The other day at work i happened to be walking the shop floor checking on customers when i overheard a conversation between three elderly customers, two female and one male. Now obviously i never caught their names so for the purposes of this blog and to avoid stereotyping elderly folks we shall call them Maggie, Betty and Jim...

I am assuming they were shopping for a grandchild's birthday present, presumably a boy, and the conversation between them went something like this...

Maggie: 'Ah dinnae ken what to get the wee wan, i'm nae good at this.'

Betty: 'Why don't you get him a book?'

Maggie: 'Ah dinnae hink he reads.'

***At this point i was wondering why they had even came into a bookshop, but hey ho, everyone to their own... They might even of had dementia for all i know.***

Betty (pointing towards the Nintendo DS stand): 'Why don't you get him a computer game?'

Maggie: 'Ah dinnae ken if he has the internet or no.'

Betty: 'Jim! Has the wee wan got the internet?'

***Yes, i was wondering what the internet had to do with playing a Nintendo DS game too, but it was about to get better...***

Jim: 'Aye, ah think so.'

Betty: 'Aye see. he's got the internet, get him one of those Nintendo games for his Playstation, he'll like that!'

***Ehh, i somehow think he won't... Sometimes i fear for the the youth these days as they wake up on Christmas morning to the presents their grandparents have bought them, knowing fine well they won't be right at all and knowing fine well that the receipt will already be more than halfway to a rubbish mound or will already be being recycled into office paper... Kids, just get your grandparents to your house a few weeks before Christmas or your birthday, show them exactly what you want on the internet, then enter the credit card details yourself... Painless.***

Booking Awful!

2009-09-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

I work part-time at a leading book shop in Edinburgh to fund my living costs and to pay for books and equipment for university... And I keep a few bob for going out and socialising until obscene hours of the morning... Anyway I won't let my dedication to hard work get in the way of a rather funny story...

Last week at work I was approached by a young Spanish woman, (unfortunately she looked nothing like this young Spanish woman ) and her English wasn't all that brilliant, but she managed to say 'Book called Harvest, do you have one similar?'...

At this point i was rather stumped as the search system offered no suggestions to a fiction book called 'Harvest'. I continued to question the customer and i finally discovered that the book was a Science Fiction book so i recommended a few science fiction books that i had read... about ;) And this seemed to appease the lady...

Anyway about 10 minutes later the young Spanaird approached me and said that the book was not called 'Harvest', but actually it was called 'The Hobbit'... The Hobbit!? The fucking hobbit?! How the hell could you get that mixed up? Anyway after my mental rage the woman said that her boyfriend had read 'The Hobbit' and wanted to read something that continues the story or similar...

At which point i offered the woman Terry Pratchett's Discworld... In all seriousness though, where the hell has the Spanish been for the last 10 years not to have heard of Lord of the Rings!? Sometimes i wonder...

UFM

Five a Kicky Anyone?

2009-09-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Anyone remember playing 'Five a Kicky' back in the day on any surface and anywhere where a hastily assembled makeshift set of goals could be made? You all know the game, the one where someone starts in goals and for every five goals the outfield players score they get to take a punt of the ball at the keeper's backside... But it wasn't as easy as that of course, you could only score from a full or half volley or a header and if the keeper caught your shot without it bouncing, you were in goals, or if you put a shot wide... It's your turn between the sticks. Yeah i played that game growing up until i was about 16, but it appears as though this game has disappeared from the streets. Perhaps this is a fairly trivial observation, but in an age when the media bemoans Scotland's lack of individual talent within the national team, it could be small things like the decline of street football games that are causing this apparant lack of 'talent'.

Anyone who claims that kid's aren't interested in football now and would rather sit in and play computer games is off the mark by a considerable distance. It is easy to blame the rise of the computer console for the decline in footballing talent, but look at the facts... There are more organised kid's football teams now than there were 40, 30, 20 even 10 years ago and the facilities have improved 10folds for kids so why are we failing to produce the quality of player like we used to?

There are several contributing factors to the lack of individual talent within the international team... Firstly, football is no longer viewed as a viable or sensible career path to follow. The majority of kids often get told by their parents and their teachers that going to college and university are the only ways to make a successful career(which is not the case). Kids are told from a young age that a career in football is extremely hard to achieve, and while this is very true there is often a condescending tone in the way kids are told. I have witnessed instances when a child has been laughed at in class because he said he wanted to be a professional footballer... This is no way to treat someones dream and this is happening all over the country and this is damaging the prospects of future Scotland teams. Youngsters should be encouraged to play football, and if they have a desire to become professional, they should be pushed hard in training and encouraged to pursue this avenue with all the backing of everyone around them.

Following on from the previous point, encouraging someone to pursue a career in professional football is not enough in my opinion. Training for youngsters is of a high calibre and (from experience) undoubtedly fantastic at building a great respect and knowledge for the game, but often at training sessions and in games kids are told to do the 'simple thing' and 'play it safe' and 'work as a team', this is all very important of course, but there seems to be a stiffling of the flair players, something we as a nation are lacking severly in. Training excercises are often aimed at developing teamwork and movement, but rarely do we see any players being allowed to develop fancy skills and intricate footwork... Look at nations such as Portugal, Brazil and Argentina for example, anytime any footage is shown of training sessions or matches there will always be a player trying something fancy and this is the norm and is welcomed by the fans and the coaches, but if anyone in Scotland tried something like that they would be slated and be told to 'keep it simple'. Creative expression has to be encouraged if we are to develop flair players if players are continually told to keep it simple, then simple mediocre football is all we are going to be treated to.

Playing football in the streets is no longer the cool thing to do, kids as young as 12 have taken up the fine art of street drinking. Underage drinking on the streets by the nations youth is three times more to blame for the lack of flair players in Scotland than computer games are. The apparant ease at which kids can get their hands on alcohol is at times quite simply unbelievable... Kids would much sooner be on the streets drinking than playing football in the park, and you have to ask yourself, where did this go wrong? There is plenty of facilities for kids to use, but often there is a fee involved for an astroturf or indoor games hall and this may put kids off... The local garages where youths used to play football all now have 'No Ball Games' signs plastered all over the walls... Goals that used to sit in the park are torn down by rowdy youths so kids just can't simply play football... I'm sure some still use two jerseys as posts, but this seems to be a dying art nowadays... Indeed, there have been good initiatives put in place to try and encourage youths off the street and into an astroturf to play football, but this doesn't appear to be enough and it's hard to find a feasable solution...

'Five a Kicky' looks like becoming a long lost game and a distant memory of my childhood and unless something is done at grass roots level and even for those who aren't part of any organised football team then Scottish football is going to continue in its current level of mediocraty...

UFM

Where Now?

2009-09-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Scotland's World Cup campaign came to an end in what will be described as the newspapers as a 'heroic effort', 'a glorious failure' and a 'unlucky defeat', against the third best team in the world at the moment, The Netherlands. The media are all too quick to use these phrases when describing our recent qualifying campaigns, but despite a good performance against the Dutch, this campaign has been far from glorious and has ultimately resulted in a huge failure.

Look at the facts, we finished in third with 10 points in a group that consisted of The Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Macedonia and ourselves. There was a potential 24 points up for grabs and we never even took half of them. Realistically we should have maybe been looking to take 1 point from the Dutch, 4 points from Norway and 6 from Macedonia and Iceland. Now give or take a minor slip up here or there we should have been aiming for 17 points with 13 as a very bare minimum. We finished 3 points from that total, which in a group that wasn't the most difficult of groups is a very poor return.

The game tonight against The Netherlands was undoubtedly Scotland's best performance of the qualifying campaign, but it came too little too late in a desperate must win situation. Tactically tonight Scotland were about spot on, but squad selection was maybe a bit off. Tactically, we have been a hit and a miss in this qualifying campaign. Burley got it about right in the two matches against Iceland and against Macedonia and The Netherlands at Hampden, but in the other matches there were a few grave errors of judgement that ultimately cost the team second place in the group. Playing a 4-4-2 formation in the blistering heat in Macedonia was always going to cause fatigue issues and it ultimately showed, a 4-5-1 combined with tactical subtitutions replacing the striker and two midfield players to reduce fatigue would have been much better suited and the 5 in midfield would have been able to slow the game down to a less tiring pace. The 4-5-1 was used though against Norway at Hampden, a startling managerial blunder. Norway are a good team, but the Scotland squad can go toe to toe with them and being at home a 4-4-2 or even 4-3-3 would have created a tempo and atmosphere the Norweigans would have found uncomfortable, but this was not the case and we took only 1 point from these two winnable games.

George Burley must take the majority of the blame for these tactical blunders and Scotland's shortcomings. It looks likely that Burley will get the punt by the SFA, a decision that will be backed by the majority of Scotland fans. Burley will have won over many doubters after his squads well organised efforts against the Dutch, but if we seriously look at the campaign as a whole, it is a failure and not a 'heroic failure' as some may read tommorow. Burley was never the man for the job in my opinion, but at the time there weren't many managers available or indeed, willing to take on the Scotland job. If Burley does go then we have to get a manager in who has experience of managing outwith Scotland and at the minute there only seems to be two worthy candidates. Greame Souness is one of the names been mentioned, certainly he would command the respect of the players and would no doubt maintain the dig and determination that successful Scotland teams have always shown, but Souness has been out of management for a while and one wonders if he is prepared to get back into the game. The other man who i think should be a stick on for the job is Gordan Strachan. Strachan worked wonders with a Celtic team on a tight budget and showed that he was able to get the best out of his team on the European stage. Strachan will undoubtedly command the respect of the players and has the advantage of having seen most of the current crop playing.

Whoever is the Scotland manager when the qualifying for the European Championships comes around has to take a look at the players at his disposle and bring in some fresh faces. A mix of experience and youth is essential, but Scotland will be losing experienced players before the next campaign begins in Davie Weir, Paul Hartly and Kenny Millar all likely to be out of the squad when the next qualifying campaign comes around. The first thing that needs to be rectified for the European Championships is that Kris Boyd has to be brought back into the squad. He is our only natural goal scorer and he always seems to pop up at the right moment for Rangers to score a goal. Fair enough, i can see the drawbacks in that he may not work hard enough to run the 'lone striker' role, but we need him on the park for 90 minutes every match to try and snatch a goal as he always takes the opportunities that comes his way!

Beside him, the two players who seem likely to take over for the next campaign are Stephen Fletcher and Stevie Naismith, hopefully Fletcher continues to develop with Burnley and with Rangers finanical woes, Naismith gets his opportunity to partner Boyd and maybe develop a Scotland partnership for the future. These two players will be very important for the squad in the future and hopefully continue to develop as players.

New players for the midfield and defence are going to have to be sourced though, with only Alan Hutton, Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher in my opinion being guaranteed a place in the squad for the qualifying campaign. Obviously we have two quality goalkeepers in Craig Gordan and David Marshall so that position should be secure. Stephen McManus and Gary Caldwell both have their off days and will need to sharpen up if Scotland are to improve as a team. Steven Whittaker has looked impressive in the past two games and hopefully he can continue to improve and establish himself as a regular.

It's going to be a long year and a bit waiting on the qualifying campaign starting, but hopefully whoever is manager when the time comes around has used the time wisely and has sourced out fresh faces to help boost the qualifying chances.

UFM