James's blog - Lost, lost, lost in a sea of conjecture

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Euro 2024 post

12 Jul 24 | Re: Football quiz and team of the tournament | Link-U-Post

Here we are, just before the final of what's been a very enjoyable Euro 2024 (arguably despite some of England's efforts). I'm getting stoked for the final, but as we wait for the big day, here's a bit of blog fun in the meantime. I've devised a short Euro 2024 quiz, which you'll find below. Then you can read my player selections for team of the tournament. And then you can find the answers to the quiz and see how you did.

Here we go!

James's Euro 2024 ten question quiz spectacular

Which football club has the most players representing it in the England squad this tournament?
Apart from the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, one other Euro 2024 ground is located in the old East Germany. Which city is it in?
Which ITV pundit accused Scotland of "making history" at the Euros by playing so badly?
In terms of names on shirts, which Dutch player is the odd one out from: Virgil Van Dijk, Memphis Depay, Denzel Dumfries, Xavi Simons?
What famous tune was adopted by the Danish fans before the Denmark-England game to taunt England with "It's never coming home"?
Which team that failed to qualify from the group stages had the best overall record?
Three of the four quarter finals went to extra time. Which was the only team to win their quarter final in the 90 minutes?
As of the semi-finals, there have been three penalty shoot-outs in the tournament. Which unfortunate team went out on penalties without managing to score a single one?
Also as of the semi finals, there have still been no goals from direct free kicks - much to the disappointment of Cristiano Ronaldo in particular. Prior to the tournament, how many direct free kicks had Ronaldo scored in major tournaments?
Amid the St Andrew's crosses and tartan, many Scottish fans could be seen garbed in a snazzy pink-and-yellow pattern. Why?

There we go. Have a think about those, but before we get to the answers, have a look at my...

TEAM OF THE TOURNAMENT

Here are my personal selections for Team of the Tournament. I'm imposing a two-player-per-country limit and my favoured 4-4-2 formation but otherwise there are no restrictions except that this is the BEST POSSIBLE TEAM from all the available players, based on performance throughout the Euro 2024 finals.

Goalkeeper: Jan Oblak. There were several good keepers playing for the smaller nations, but Slovenia's Oblak gets it for his inspirational performance against Portugal and having the audacity to save Cristiano Ronaldo's penalty in particular.

Left back: Cucurella. Little guy, big hair, reliable in defence and very fluid getting forward. Plus lots of fouls and massive booing from the home fans for a debatable handball that might have debatably knocked Germany out of the tournament. I initially thought his name was a nickname that meant "teaspoon" but it isn't.

Centre back: Marc Guehi. One of England's stories of the tournament, has played like a veteran and always been dependable. People have complained about England's forward play but never the defence, and he's a big part of why that is.

Centre back: Ryan Porteous. Hugely unlucky to be sent off in the first game, and Scotland never recovered from losing him.

Right back: Denzel Dumfries. Very exciting attacking full-back and another victim of a dodgy decision in the penalty award for Kane in the semi-final. Very nearly cancelled that out by heading against the bar shortly afterwards. Superb name.

Centre midfield: N'Golo Kante. Rock solid holding the line for France and good intensity during the anthems.

Centre midfield: Xavi Simons. A lot of the attacking excitement has been down the wings this year but Simons showed a lot of creativity through the centre and scored a great goal against England to go with his table-topping (at time of writing) three assists.

Left wing: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. Half of Georgia's game-winning counter-attack flying squad. A joy to watch.

Right wing: Lamine Yamal. Everybody's player of the tournament is mine as well. Absolutely incredible in every department. Great hair too, in a tournament stuffed with predominantly woeful dos.

Striker: Ivan Toney. Given limited minutes on the pitch (so far???) but made the absolute most of what he had to work with. Playing him instead of Kane in the final, while probably too much of a bold move to actually happen, would surely bring England to glory.

Striker: Georges Mikautadze. Georgia's master marksman got three goals (joint top at time of writing) despite going out in the last 16. Georgia's no possession, all counterattack strategy is great viewing but would have no chance without an absolutely top guy to take the chances.

Country count: England 2, Netherlands 2, Spain 2, Georgia 2, France 1, Slovenia 1, Scotland 1.

Who would be on your team of the tournament? Let me know in the comments! (LOL)

Quiz answers

OK, we've waited long enough. Here are the answers to the quiz (highlight the text to read it).

1 Crystal Palace - Henderson, Guehi, Wharton, Eze. 2 Leipzig, the, er, Red Bull Arena. 3 Roy Keane. 4 Denzel Dumfries, because the others all have their first names on their shirts. 5 Yellow Submarine. 6 Ukraine, coming bottom despite getting 4 points in a weird group where everyone else also got 4 points. 7 The Netherlands, coming from behind to beat Turkey. 8 Slovenia, against Portugal. 9 CR7 has only scored one free kick in a major tournament, though to be fair it was a screamer. 10 It's an homage to their classic away kit from the 1990 World Cup in the home of fashion, Italy, in which they famously went out in round 1.

How did you do? Doesn't really matter, thanks for reading and come on England! Let's have a real performance.

Posted by ARIE GROTE at 22:20

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Back from oblivion

31 Mar 23 | Re: Lazarus-like recovery of lost blogging artefacts | Link-U-Post

Back in 2016 there was a minor blog disaster where I failed to renew my domain name, resulting in the loss of several months' blogging work (two posts). That's a small amount of material but I was sorry to lose it because one of them was maybe the second best thing I've ever put on here. But finally we have some good news: it took me this long, but I had the idea of checking the Wayback Machine and lo and behold, there were the lost posts!

Without too much futher delay, I've restored them, so now readers can once again read about:

DIY: A Thatcherite plot? - In which I argue convincingly that the popularisation of DIY was/is a sort of Tory Trojan horse, deliberately intended to hobble the working classes and lurch the country to the right.
Say something, I'm giving up on you - The pick of the two, where I respond to Labour's 2015 election defeat by suggesting that they should appoint a very left-wing leader and campaign on a proper left-wing platform. Which actually happened!

Enjoy!

(And many, many thanks to the Wayback Machine, which provides an invaluable service in so many ways.)

Posted by CAPTAIN WALTON at 21:45

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To tear it down

11 Feb 22 | Re: The greatest ever album closing track | Link-U-Post

The best thing going today on Twitter is the People's Pop Polls, and this month they're voting on the best album closing tracks of all time. I've nominated Finisterre by Saint Etienne (from the album Finisterre) so here are some notes on why.

The song has a pretty tough job to do, placed at the end of a very varied album that lurches from dance-pop bangers to electro experiments to songwriterly sketches to pretty instrumentals. To tie that loose collection together, Finisterre looks the listener in the eye and discusses some of the themes that have been implied along the way, including hope, optimism, beauty, and a disappointment at anything that lacks those qualities. But a disappointment that's also a cause for joy, since it's an affirmation that we're still looking for the good.

So it's a manifesto song. Except that the manifesto is voiced by someone outside the band (one Sarah Churchill), so there's a distance. It's not clear whether the band subscribes to the manifesto as stated, or whether they're more interested in the aesthetic quality of what it is to hold those kinds of ideas. We are talking a sweeping, impractical idealism that can write off the entire nineteenth century, that wants skyscrapers without the industrialisation that made them possible. That rushes to plant its flag wherever it finds beauty, deliberately neglecting to think things all the way through. It's a young adult's way of thinking: flawed, but with a nostalgic appeal for those of us who've had to move past it (and in delegating the vocal, the band imply that they themselves might be getting too old to embrace that mode of thinking completely). It's ever so dreamy, but it's not weak, since it takes some courage to have that kind of hope.

These big ideas are put into the most epic setting possible by having the song quietly be about the end of the world (hence "Finisterre"). Plenty of albums close with an apocalyptic climax, but Finisterre takes a non-Rock approach, being more interested in the two people who crawl out of the tree after Ragnarok and find a blank canvas where they can create a new world. It's a daydream about what it would mean to have that opportunity - or do we, in a very real sense, have that chance within ourselves every day? It's there in the music too - the nervy electro of the spoken bits giving way to chiming prettiness, especially when the other Sarah's vocal finally comes in.

Finally, a word about the song's place in the band's career. Since Finisterre they've only made concept albums, released increasingly far apart, always well received by the fan base (and music writers) but hopelessly far from what Radio 1 are looking for. Finisterre was their last album as a vaguely current act, as a would-be chart concern, so this track is the end of their first act as well as the end of an album (and of the world). Any triumphalism would have been misplaced, but there is a quiet pride at having hung on to their outlook. And it's not a complete full stop: the opening lyrics call forward to what would be their next single a few years later (Side Streets). Thematically it's as good a summation of the band as you could find: nothing to do with London, really, which music writers constantly bang on about, but celebrating a state of mind that's available to everyone, everywhere. You don't have to agree with everything in the lyric, but if a part of you doesn't want to agree with it, to be on that team, then Saint Etienne probably aren't for you. If they are for you, then hopefully you're like me, completely floored by this brilliant song, thrilled and filled with hope for humanity but sad that you can't be more optimistic at the same time.

So vote for bravery, hope, nostalgia for our old mistakes, and new beginnings. Vote Finisterre.

Posted by LA MAGA at 22:17

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