Goodbye Stan...

A Euro campaign review presents a very sobering statistic...the Irish national soccer team took 1 point from a possible 6 from......Cyprus! Ireland still boast a team selection made up of mostly English Premier League players. Cyprus have mostly players selected from the Cypriot league...roughly on a par with the Irish domestic league (Eircom League), which is organized on what used to be known as a "semi-pro" basis. So Irish national coach Steve "Stan" Staunton will pay the ultimate price. What's more concerning is the scuttling sound emerging from the corridors of power at the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) as officials run for cover and try to avoid that awful thing...responsibility. Stan's appointment was contentious from the start as many outside the FAI criticized his lack of any meaningful coaching experience. Among many Irish football fans there is a popular contempt for the FAI and its perceived failings. There is a strong sense of disappointment now among the Irish football public as the past 5 years have been rather barren and the national team's decline has become apparent. Goodbye Stan. You will be forever associated with failure now, and with that spectacular shock when Cyprus put 5 goals past Ireland. Your huge contribution to Ireland as player and team captain are now eclipsed by your naivety and inexperience as a coach.

In Rainbow - Blue Nile?

This is not a re(bel song)-view!!
I have been a Radiohead head for zonks. Those awful traffic choked drives home through Kuala Lumpur from the night job during '97-'98 my sanity saved by 'OK Computer'. I wore out 2 cassettes of said work in my car stereo. I paid 5 pounds for my download of 'In Rainbow'. I put it on a CD and listened to it as I drove through the awful traffic choked roads of Dubai. It takes me time to savour and arrive at somewhere with works of art - be they music, literature, whatever...
With many of the tracks on 'In Rainbow' I can only say I must have lived too long...all I can hear is 'Blue Nile' - remember them? I think they release a collection every 25 years! Anyway, I think Thom has been listening to a lot of Blue Nile. Just as we did all those years ago...on the real Blue Nile: Rufaah, Wad Medani, Singa and Sennar...
Blue Nile River
Blue Nile - the band