Leaving

Im leaving England early Thursday morning so this blog is likely to be on a bit of a hiatus as Im not sure when ill start blogging again. Big thank you to everyone who kept coming here and especially those who left comments. In one week I will be in Kigali and about 3 weeks later I'll spend a few weeks in Kampala. After that who knows? With a regular internet connection I might keep this blog going a while longer, but for now it is officially on a break.

Graduation day:

With the ever-delightful Jade

With Laura


With just about everybody

With Rama

I dont think ive ever posed for quite so many pictures before

mama and Manzi both unaware that when I talked about world domination, I wasnt being literal.

things I have learned from the world cup

*Includes things I suspected before but have confirmed over the last few weeks*

-The flashes we got of Diego Maradona in the crowd during Argentina's games suggests quite strongly that his flirtation with mind-enhancing drugs has yet to come to an end.
-Fabio Cannavaro is the best defender in the world. Fact.
-Some of the tournament referees would benefit with a short stay at Guantanamo Bay.
-It's official- men can now freely express their emotions infront of a billion people by crying their eyes out. Another macho stereotype rudely dashed.
-Turns out Italy CAN play some bloody exciting football when they feel like it.
-Being overweight is in no way an impediment to breaking the all-time world cup leading scorer record. It turns out you don't even need to be in good shape to be a footballer. Step forward Ronaldo- we will miss you though.
-The best team (Argentina) did not win.
-A massive corruption scandal involving four of your country's biggest teams and very possibly some of your players does not in any way distract you from reaching a world cup final. Who knew?
-Girly hair has yet to be stamped out of the sport- see Pablo Sorin, Mauro Camoranesi etc
-If you knock Argentina out of the world cup, they WILL use their fists.
-According to the English tabloids, stamping on someone's nuts is OK (Rooney) but running up to the ref to protest about this action is despicable (Christiano Ronaldo)Apparently you are not supposed to do that to your club team-mate even at a world cup. Some reports even suggest that Carvalho made the most of Rooney's 'challenge'- how could he not? Is there such a thing as overreacting to having your balls stamped on?
-Brazil: lazy or complacent? discuss.
-The men behind the camera have an almost superhuman ability to spot a hot woman in a crowd of 50,000 people.
-There was the assumption by the men behind the cameras that the rest of the world dearly needed to see Victoria Beckham's reaction to every England shot, throw-in, substitution, corner etc. Sometimes it felt like the football on the pitch was just the supporting act to the Victoria Beckham show. If England had reached the final, actual footage of the men on the pitch would have been about ten minutes.
-Thierry Henry is not quite the gentleman we thought he was but is a cheat after all. Those things he said at the end of the Champions League final ("I don't go down like a girl") have already returned to haunt him
-The Guardian minute by minute commentary of the games was a joy.
-Some Islamic leaders don't take too kindly to having football corrupting the Muslim youth- after all, the world cup is just a cunning front of the Zionist and American infidels to distract their youth (I am para-phrasing here but this was the gist of the story)
-Too much of the commentary came out sounding like sexual innuendo ("It's so lovely to see two strikers playing with each other" to quote David Pleat on ITV last night)I don't know whose fault this is.
-Turns out Owen Hargreaves is not actually a mediocre player but is instead some kind of superman.
-Games with men sent off inevitably became a better spectacle whether from a sporting point of view (Italy vs. US) or from a drama point of view (Holland vs Portugal which should have been administered by WWF rules)
-Frank Lampard- To quote someone else, this man couldn't hit a cow's ass with a banjo.
-England have some serious psychologial issues when it comes to penalties. SERIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES!
-Ghana may have impressed us with the skill of their football, but they win a joint-prize with Portugal for going down quicker than a two dollar prostitute. Many found contact with thin air was enough to make them fall to the ground.

My year in review

It's been a hell of an academic year- mostly fun, quite stressful, a bit mad, often surreal but generally a good year.
So covering the time period October 2005-July 2006, here is a random list of things I loved/hated/enjoyed/did/thought. Since it is a random list the selection is going to be...erm, random, possibly VERY random.

Joys:
-Discovering the last two Radiohead albums I didn't have- The bends and Amnesiac. Those two- and Radiohead in general- deserve their own post.
-Reading the collected poems of Emily Dickinson in the warmth and comfort of my bed.
-Facing the jurisprudence exam and suddenly realizing that I would pass the module after all. It was a very nice feeling- much like the first time I discovered apple juice.
- Oh yes, this brings me to apple juice. Bless you. Without you I would be...well, drinking something else probably. Wouldn't be as good though.
-Discovering Terry Pratchett late last year.
-Meeting a few cool and fascinating people who in their own ways made my life a brighter place.
-The few drunken nights out I managed and the madness that was almost always present on these occasions.
-Hobnob biscuits- the King of biscuits and the bringer of joy.
-The wonderful, vivid dreams I started getting as soon as I finished my exams.
-Having I want to be the boy (who warms your mother's heart) by the White Stripes playing repeatedly in my head for a long period before my exams. It made things better somehow.
-The sunday times- Always brilliant.
-The interesting jurisprudence seminars which turned a difficult module into a fascinating one and occasionaly featured things like a magic pen and conversations about 'circus freaks' to quote one enlightened individual.
-The 'horizontal bungee jumping' thing- or whatever they call it- that made up an incredibly fun five minutes of my summer ball experience
-The dozens- ok, to be honest hundreds- of absolutely bonkers conversations I had throughout the year. Take a bow Leo, Geoff, Quena and Rich, some of my partners in crime. Others may wish to remain anonymous.
-The party at my brothers' friends house that culminated in a near-fight and an explanation of the situation- a kind of love-triangle- using three empty cans of beer. You had to be there, but I don't know if I've ever laughed quite so hard.
-Making the same lame joke to people who were having trouble coping with the hot summer about what a cool tan I had.
-The daily bread and tea midnight snack.
-The constant stream of wonderful tabloid headlines like JENNIFER ANISTON IN REVENGE PREGNANCY.
-Talking about relationships with Geoff the only man I know of who broke up with his girlfriend but didn't tell her and what's more continued going out with her.
-Reading the 'lonely hearts' ads in the newspaper and chuckling throughout.
-Three TV shows which were genius- Shameless, Peep Show and the amazing The thick of it.
-Unintentional words of wisdom from a handful of people.

The not-so-good:
-Realizing half-way through the History of English law course that it was too late to change to another module and that I was going to have to take some very drastic measures to make sure I didnt flunk the bloody thing. I solved the problem through the incredibly ingenious method of reading the material- it works everytime.
-The constant, sinking feeling you get when you suspect that everyone else has automatically assumed you are Nigerian because you have an African accent.
-Discovering that I've picked up a slight stutter which pops up unexpectedly now and again.
-Watching Adam's mental breakdown spread out across a five month period. Well it WAS funny in the beginning.
-The entire exam period- I don't think I want to go through that shit again.
-The constant, unrelenting brokeness. To quote a song by Hard-fi "There's a hole in my pocket.."
-Watching England getting knocked out of the world cup in a room full of disbelieving fans and a solitary girl draped in a Portugese flag who was cheering on Portugal very loudly and got told more than once to "fuck off."
-That one bad night out I had at the end of the second semester.
-Fighting with the heater during winter.

Here we go again: England crash out

The dream is over and boy, is this country depressed right now.
England going out in the quater-finals on penalties after a brave performance with ten men- does that sound familiar? yep, World cup 98 second round game against Argentina. I can remember that night closing my eyes for the David Batty penalty that knocked us out. When the match came down to penalties again yesterday, I got that sinking feeling again. I had already come to terms with the fact that England were likely to lose but it was still a real blow anyway. It was such a brave and gutsy performance with ten men that for long I actually dared to believe that England might actually win. This was of course a very elementary mistake to make and I should have known better.
I've supported England since the 1990 world cup when I caught a glimpse of one of their group matches and for some reason was drawn to them. I've seen all their world cup games since 1998 and all their European Championship games since 2004, and I can tell you this was the most painful defeat of all. England played so well when Rooney got sent off and they really should have won the game because they were the better side. Rooney stamping on that guy's nuts turned England into a better team (that sentence sounds so wrong)although the role Ronaldo seemed to play in the whole affair means he would be well advised not to go back to England even to pick his belongings.
And I would also like to formally eat some humble pie with regard to Owen Hargreaves. When the tournament started I questioned his ability to play the holding role well- and this was borne from seeing him play for England in the past- but he was magnificent yesterday and indeed throughout the tournament. I was wrong about Hargreaves and that performance alone will probably guarantee him some kind of cult status with English fans in the future. As for Frank Lampard, the less said the better. This was a man who was voted second best player in the world and he was completely ineffective throughout the tournament, much like the best player in the world Ronaldinho who also had a world cup to forget. Certainly few people have ever seen Lampard miss a penalty, but he did as did Gerrard and Carragher in a very painful and almost unwatchable five minutes of penalties.
Adrian Chiles made a good point last night- when England step up for a shoot-out, they just don't look confident. On the BBC's highlights programme, they froze the camera on Lampard's face at the moment he stepped up to take the penalty and he looked absolutely terrified. Christiano Ronaldo on the other hand strode up as if he was walking into McDonalds to order a burger and you didn't think he was going to miss. He was just so confident that it was almost a swagger. Every England player on the other hand stepped up looking like death itself except Hargreaves- and again how amazing was he yesterday?- and you knew deep down they would miss.
The Germans are also ice-cold when it comes to penalties- they have never lost a penalty shootout in the world cup and I knew Argentina didn't stand a chance. How come the Germans take them so well and the English are so shit at them? A penalty shoot-out is really just psychological games, and the sad fact of the matter is the English just didn't- and never do- have the bottle. The Portugese did and so did the Germans as always.

And am I the only ones laughing at the Brazilians? They just looked like they wanted to win the entire tournament while playing in first gear. They seemed to take it for granted that the world cup was theirs already.

Back to England, it's only a little consolation to go out having been the better side, but history will probably point out quite rightly that this failure was largely down to the extraodrinary idiocy of Sven Goran Eriksson; a man who took 4 strikers to the world cup- two of whom were clearly unfit, one who had struggled to score goals all season and a little known 17 year old kid who never got a single second of action. His attachment to Beckham was also troubling- no matter how shit Beckham was on the field, you knew Eriksson wouldn't dare pull him off and that was annoying because like Lampard, Becks had a bad tournament. He only brought on Lennon because Becks was injured and once you saw Lennon destroying the Portugese defence everytime he got the ball, it just made you wonder why Eriksson needed an injury to bring on someone so good- Lennon was quite clearly much, much better than Beckham. With the squad he had, two world cup quater-finals and a European Championship quater-final is not exactly a good return on 5 million pounds a year. England was even a bit lucky to be in the quaters considering how terrible they had been leading up to the game. Some players will leave with their heads held high- Hargreaves, Joe and Ashley Cole and Lennon. Some like Lampard and Beckham will consider themselves lucky to have even been playing in that game.
Yesterday you could literally feel the very air had been sucked out of England. My ENGLAND shirt seemed to almost shrink around my body. On the news, I saw two women hugging each other and crying their eyes out when the game was over. I thought of all the flags and the T-shirts and the sudden strong wave of patriotism that had engulfed the country. I'm not English, but I felt like a big part of it and now it's all gone.
Funny, sometimes you can completely forget this was just a football game.....