Just My 2p

Money, money, money, must be funny, in a football world

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:20:00 +0000

So, Harry's in court again, has he blown his chances of making England Coach?

Now, I don't intend to argue the rights or wrongs of this case, it is still going through court and I don't have enough knowledge to make a considered judgement. Let's wait for the court to decide on his guilt or not, and any sentence.

I would normally expect that this would end all chances of him being appointed England coach, but with the lack of other options you never know what the FA may do, and how they may justify it. There certainly aren't many other English candidates and they may be inclined to give it to Harry regardless. Let's wait and see, although I must say that I would personally be appalled if they did.

What has surprised me, and in hindsight I should have seen this coming, was that Harry Redknapp was paid a 10% commission on every player he sold. That's right, he was rewarded for selling players.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that a Managers job was to keep his players and to get the best results for the team - not to trade players for commission. Surely the reward for the manager for getting the most money for a player that they sold (reluctantly or otherwise) was to be able to improve his team, not line his own pocket?

I would have thought at there would be some form of a commercial director or finance director whose job it was to maximise the proceeds of a sale, and to put that on the club's bottom line. Have we moved so far away from any normal practice that this would be acceptable. Incentivising the manager to sell players seems to me to involve some kind of conflict of interest.

Better people than me I am sure will do the sums of who he sold, and what he may have been paid and compare that to league progress etc. and we can only wonder what could have been achieved, or not.

And I bet none of the money made its way to grassroots, youth football.

Football Funding

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:29:00 +0000

I have a friend whose son is a decent footballer at 10 years old. He plays in the local league (above his age group). Whilst he is never going to be a premier league footballer, it is something that he enjoys and it is a big part of his life.

This is all good.

The English Premier League, the FA, the Champions League and the clubs within the premier league are awash with money. Rolling in it, gorging on it £1.78bn from Sky for 2010-13, spending it lavishly - (Fernando Torres was sold for £50m, that's more than the cost of a School) if not wisely. Paying players £200k a week for goodness sake. In the UK the average price of a semi-detached house is £200k or a week's wages for some footballers.

Now, they all talk about the importance of grass roots football, of putting something back into the game, about the importance of the fans etc.

Bullshit.

My friends 10 year old has to pay about £50 a month for the privilege of playing in a local league. £12.50 a week to cover training sessions, matches etc. this is not an inconsiderable sum. It excludes many and discourages others.

We should all be ashamed of this. We bemoan the lack of home grown talent in the Premier League, yet we neglect investment in our youngsters. And these are the children who support the Premier League teams and help fund the players' excessive lifestyles.

So when you hear about John Terry's £4.6m mortgage remember that's about 92,000 children-months of football.

Harry Nilsson and Brandy Alexanders

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:16:00 +0000

Delighted to find out that Harry Nilsson and John Lennon were great drinking buddies whose favorite tipple was the cocktail Brandy Alexander.

As a long time Nilsson fan, as well as a great drinker of cocktails it is nice to find the two strands coming together.

In earlier times (OK the early 80's) we used to go "cocktail bombing", where you turn up at someone's house with a cocktail shaker and the ingredients to a cocktail, and all get smashed. Ideally with something that wasn't that well known,after all we can all make a screwdriver.

One of my favorites at the time was a Brandy Alexander. Brandy, Cream and Creme de Cacao, sprinkled with chocolate. Many happy times were had with that simple combination.

Happy times.

Has Ubuntu lost it?

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:44:00 +0000

Well I am back on 11.04 Natty Narwhal again and everything is tickety boo on the desktop.

I don't really want to move to Unity or Gnome 3 if I can avoid it, but may have to put up with it.

Is that age kicking in? After all I have lived from command line on mainframes to where I am today, through Dumb Terminals, DOS (loads), Sidekick, Gem, OS/2 PM, Openwave, Motif, OpenLook, Gnome, KDE all of which I have used in anger on various platforms over the years.

Maybe I just don't want to invest the time and effort to make myself properly productive in a new environment. Sill I have until October 2012 to sort it out.

Cynical ploy to get backlinks? Not really

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:36:00 +0000

Just soft launching our new Pancentric Search web site as a standalone SEO Agency web site.

Whilst we rank very well for search agency on our main web site, visitors get there and see a full service agency, not a search specialist and our bounce rate for those visitors is high. So we have set up a specialist search agency site where we can talk about our Holistic Search approach without compromising the effectiveness of our overall agency offering.

It will be interesting to see if this strategy works.

I've just read that back and it sounds a little awkward, I wonder whether I need to re-write the content in a less search friendly (if that's what it is) way? That would be ironic esp. given that that is not my intention.

Man Utd -New red devil causes consternation

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:01:00 +0000

New red devil

Les Tourelles de Longueville 2006

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:31:00 +0000

Not an expert review by any stretch of the imagination, not even an amateur.

I opened a bottle of this on Friday evening as I felt (after spending the day fighting off a cold and looking after my three little monsters) that I deserved it.

Of course the cold screwed my taste buds, not that it made such a difference. It was however bloody lovely.

Warm, welcoming, rich, smooth, with no sharp edges - a lovely, lovely wine. Just made to be savoured on an autumn evening while the world passes by. Nice tannins, not overly fruity (the 60+% merlot notwithstanding) an example of subtle winemaking.

A few bottles of these definitely needed

Who invented the iPod then?

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:42:00 +0000

'Twas not Steve Jobs, it was Tony Fadell.

He took the whole concept from MP3 Player, iTunes etc. to Apple who bought it lock stock and barrel. Jobs clearly had a massive influence on the design and UX, but he wasn't the commercial brain behind it.

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2004/07/64286?currentPage=all

His greatness was picking it up and making it a success.

Has Ubuntu lost it? Updated

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:57:00 +0000

The worst thing I have done recently is upgrade my Ubuntu desktop to 11.04, it is seriously flawed/unusable.

I've been using Ubuntu on my main work PC since Hoary Hedgehog, and have loved it. It has the perfect combination of ease of use and power, is secure, fast and just works. That was until they chose Unity over Gnome. And even that was OK until they went and broke Gnome.

My productivity has dropped off a cliff. Transitioning from window to window, app to app has turned into a massively annoying andvtimewasting activity as I end up alt-tabbing like a loony. This is nonsense, I am perfectly capable of clicking on a menu bar ffs.

And it seems that I am not alone, the is a great writeup that describes almost exactly my experience (a colleague wondered if it was actually me) by Jem Matzan, at www.jemmatzan.com.

I am now going to have to wipe my machine and start again. Maybe back to an earlier version, maybe th, maybe something else. Not what I want to do right now.

Sigh, Linux on the desktop self destructs.

The Register does a good piece on the community reaction to this issue http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/08/ubuntu_on_trial

Steve Jobs greatest feat was...

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:19:00 +0000

...selling technology to non-technologists.

Getting mp3 players into the hands of people who had no idea what an mp3 anything was. Turning the iPod into a device that your girlfriend wanted, even though you had spent ages trying to persuade her to get an mp3 player. "I don't want an mp3 player, I want an iPod".

And the iPhone, to be fair not a great phone when launched, but all if a sudden all the non-techies wanted one. No-one (except the geeks) was interested in email on their phone, then all of a sudden everyone wanted it.

Ultimately I think that his legacy will be turning technology into consumer electronics, the last great change before computers enter the ubiquitous phase, where they are routinely built into everything.

(cue post on the Internet of things, coming soon)

Science is hard

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:04:00 +0000

In a random sort of musing about "stuff" that I seem to spend most of my life doing, I was thinking about the whole idea of popular science and how it is promoted, And what occurred to me was that when I was studying, (maths, physics and economics) what appealed was how hard they were (OK not economics clearly), not how accessible they were.

Maths and Physics were great because they were difficult and not everyone could do them. How great is that!

Now we seem to spend a lot of time trying to make a lot of complex stuff accessible to everyone,but to do so we have to dumb stuff down so much that they are not true or useful.

I have just read Richard Dawkins (in general a good guy) explaining atoms using the Rutherford/Bohr model of electrons circling a nucleus. This not only misses the beauty of science, but puts a false image in peoples minds.

What we should be doing is, instead of trying to make everything "easy", recognise that some stuff is dead hard, and celebrate it, challenge people and reward success.

As JFK said, "we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard". And hard is good.

Latest Nigerian Scam

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:48:00 +0000

Got this email this morning, now the scammers are scamming their victims!

Brilliant, or rubbing salt in the wounds? You decide.

UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL OVERSIGHT SERVICES
Internal Audit, Monitoring,Consulting And Investigations Division

From: Mrs.Michelle Bachelet

Dear Nigerian Scam Victim,

This is to inform you that I came to Nigeria on Friday 22nd July, 2011, after series of complaints from the FBI and other Security agencies from Asia, Europe, Oceania, Australia,South America and the United States of America respectively, against the Federal Government of Nigeria and the rate of scam/fraudlent activities going on in their country.

I have met with President Goodluck Jonathan who claimed that he has been trying his best to make sure you receive your fund in your account. Right now, as directed by our secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, We have decided to waive away all your clearance fees and authorize the Government of Nigeria to effect the payment of your fund into your account without any delay. The only fee you will pay to confirm your fund in your account is your United Nation Non-Interference & Notarization fee of US$420 Dollars only to the UN Office.

check this link; http://www.nigeriaunmission.org/
check this link; http://dailytimes.com.ng/article/ban-ki-moon-visit-nigeria

Sincerely, you are a lucky person because I have just discovered that some top Nigerian/British Government Officials are interested in your fund and they are working in collaboration with One Mr.John Wheeler from USA to fraustrate you and thereafter divert your fund into their personal account.

I have a very limited time to stay in Nigeria so I would like you to urgently respond to thismessage so that I can advise you on how best to confirm your fund in your account within the next 72 hours.

You can reach me on our office Telephone Number:+234-1-7937629

I await your swift response or call to enable me kick start this payment procedures.

Thanks,

Sincerely yours,

Mrs.Michelle Bachelet
Executive Director
Office of the UN. African Region.

Media finally waking up

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:28:00 +0000

You know my feelings about the mad bubble in the UK housing market and the way that price rises were celebrated as if they were a good thing (because we all know that inflation is good isn't it?).

So imagine my surprise when the latest house price predictions were released earlier this week which said that prices would be flat for the next few years, and for the first time in living memory the BBC Radio 4 journalist (I think it was Evan Davies) actually suggested that rising house prices were only good for those people downsizing.

At long last. Could this be the beginning of a new reality where we move away from the idea that the only way to make money in by putting it all into bricks and mortar, and may consider saving money and investing in real wealth generating businesses? Let's hope so, it is a model that works well in some of the more succesful economies, Germany being a prime example.

Long may it continue

Made in Britain with Evan Davis

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:58:00 +0000

Watching Evan Davis' investigation into the state of British manufacturing and its problems, opportunities and history. It is a really good story and he doesn''t pull punches, or fall into the traditional "oh its all the fault of..." trap.

What stood out for me though was his final section which was the issue (that I have touched on earlier) that we in the UK are keener on spending our money than saving it - hence there is an investment gap and business doesn't have the wherewithall to invest.

He didn't directly finger housing costs (and our obsession with rising house prices) as the biggest issue, but in my opinion it is.

In the UK most people see their house as their major opportunity to generate wealth, including as a pension fund. This means that they put all of their investments into the home, with the expectation that just by owning it for a few years that they will inevitably make money. Of course if everyone does this it becomes a sort of self fulfilling prophesy. However it is just a pyramid scam, where those in the scheme (existing homeowners) have their gains made by new entrants (1st time buyers) putting m0ney into the scam.

At the end of the day, whilst house inflation may be running at say 5% per annum it is a false gain, after all the house isn't 5% bigger/better etc.

The real cost for the economy however is the lack of investment in real wealth generators i.e. the business sector. Businesses are starved of investment and lose comptetitiveness compared with those investment rich companies in economies such as Germany, Japan and of course the US.

So, good call Evan - I look forward to the next program in the series.

Manchster United's Free Transfer List

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:09:00 +0000

Manchester United

Devlin Conor
Hargreaves Owen
Neville Gary Alexander
Scholes Paul
Van Der Sar Edwin

Sad to see such great talents go

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Weird things you find when you travel

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 14:51:00 +0000

Anyone who saw my February 2008 post will know that I have a certain fondness for the film "Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" and not just for the name.

The tale of a morally bankrupt drifter played by Warren Oates in 70's Mexico as a paino player turned bounty hunter, out to get said head for a reward of $1m. vAnd it all goes horribly wrong.

The other star of the film was the 1962 Chevy Impala convertible, and guess what they had inside one of the bars in the hotel in Turkey we have just stayed in? Yup, a cherry red 60'2 Chevy Impala convertible (suitably beaten up) barely believable.

The staff and management had not idea why they had it there, other than a 60's/70's theme, but there it was.

I am hoping that the designer put it there on purpose. I could be wrong though.

Oh, and it was a glorious looking car.

just.my2p

.

Privacy and Twitter, just my2p

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:42:00 +0000

This whole privacy row really should be seen in the context of an old media, the “press”, competing with a more democratic new media online. If “celebrity” tittle tattle can be passed around as easily and rapidly as the likes of Twitter facilitate, there is little use in waiting for a “Daily” or “Weekly” tabloid newspaper to read about it. The press are then no longer the sole distributors of content and as a result the influence of the press is diminished.

Newspapers, with their access to source material (they send reporters to courts) are losing the immediacy. So they wish to remove the barriers to publishing so that they can get the story out first in an exclusive, before all of the salacious (because they are only really interested in the salacious – the Sun said nothing about the Trafigura case) gossip spreads across the internet.

In the same way that the record companies, and increasingly the film companies are struggling to come to terms with a world that moves quicker and with more volume than they can, and the subsequent loss of control as they no longer control the distribution of their content. The press are trying to keep hold of their monopoly on distribution, in this case of gossip.

They are trying to do this by removing restrictions so that they can take advantage of being further upstream than anybody else. However, by doing so they are harming all of us by removing personal privacy measures. You may not agree with what the footballer and the model did, but that doesn't mean that they are not entitled to their privacy.

The footballer in question has not courted the press or publicity, he has kept out of the tabloids as best he can and doesn't seek to gain fame through the press. So IMHO it is an invasion of privacy, with no public interest angle. As someone recently pointed out there is a big
difference between the interest of the public and the public interest.

just.my2p

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Why you fall over when you are drunk

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:34:00 +0000

I am watching a programme on TV where they are talking about the semi-circular canal in your inner ear and I am reminded that when you drink beer, wine or spirits the alcohol in your blood stream thins the liquid in your semi-circular canals which affects your sense of balance. And you fall over. It is not you brain being affected but your ears.
Sent from my HTC

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Where do you sit on the nuclear debate?

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:34:00 +0000

Two very contrasting views of the same thing. The state of the nuclear facility in Fukushima, it's a tribute to great engineering or it's a disaster just about to happen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12733393 the BBC is running with the scare story.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/ The Register's analysis is that the facility has performed magnificently, massively exceeding its design specs.

I have to say I am in the latter camp, an 8.9 richter earthquake followed by a massive tsunami that takes out the power - and still everything is under control.

Add to that the incredible performance of Japanese buildings that didn't fall down and you see that it is possible to build this stuff safely, if you apply scientific principles and good technology.

Look what my son took on holiday with him

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:30:00 +0000

Unbelievably I found them in his bag when we got to our hotel. They were in his hand luggage and were not picked up at Gatwick, even though his bag was x-ray'ed.

They aren't live ammo, but they are real (not plastic).

I was petrified bringing them back, but we managed that as well.

Star stuff

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:33:00 +0000

Not momentous or important, but I love the fact that we are all made of atoms that were created inside stars. We are all made of star stuff that has been ejected from stars in supernova events. This really grounds us in the immensity of the universe, and underpins why cosmology is so important, it is our history and heritage, it's what we are.

Barclays, bonuses and performance

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:26:00 +0000

This is my take on the bankers pay debate, especially as it applies to Barclays Bank. I have to be open here and admit that I bank with Barclays and so have an interest (probably negative though).

So this week we have had two bits of relevant news in my opinion. Firstly that, compared £100 invested in Barclays 5 years ago would now be worth £53 even with all of the dividends reinvested, this compares to the average of the FTSE which would have been worth £126. That is a crap return, not just a bit crap but seriously crap. This is a business that seriously underporforms, not a company that you would invest in really.

Secondly, Barclays has been paying (and still does) what most of us would consider to be obscene bonuses. This year the top 5 management team shared over £100 million, and remember they aren't likely to be the top earner, some traders will earn a lot more. And this in a company that is seriously under performing the FTSE.

To any rational person the two things are irreconcilable, how can a business that underpoerforms in such a manner (and one that had to be bailed out by a middle eastern monarchy to survive the crash) pay such high bonuses, and pay in general, why don't the shareholders vote with their feet and sell their shares, voting against the bad management of Barclays?

so why does this happen, and why is it important?

Well, you have to remember that most of us are dependent on institutional investors for our financial health, whether it is our pension fund or any investments you have some fund manager is investing your money on your behalf, and they have in probability
Ity been holding Barclays under performing shares.

Why? Well to understand that you have to realise that fund managers are not very good at their jobs, and few of any manage to do better than picking shares at random, so what they try and do is track the index (FTSE) this means that they are as good as everyone else. And the way you do that is by holding a portfolio that mirrors the constituents of the index. As a result if you are in the FTSE your shares are valued for being in the index, more than their performance. It also helps if,like Barclays, you provide funds for fund managers etc.

So who lost money over the last few years, that'll be the pension funds and investment funds - supporting the banks.

So it goes.

Why we have file naming conventions

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:27:00 +0000

So, it's Friday we are working on our submission to a client to get on
their roster (v.important).

A lot of effort, sweat and creativity has been put into our submission -
which is limited to 5 slides. The submission is eventually agreed by everyone, the deadline
approaches.

The last step is to upload it into the online bid management system, we
upload the file, check it is right, double check and treble check.
Satisfied we press "Submit"

And their system errors, badly. It doesn't say what is wrong, just
crashes.

F*CK.

The problem? underscores in the file name, doh!

Rule number 3 in our File Naming Conventions 3 Use capital letters to delimit words, not spaces or underscores

Happy to share them all, they definitely work.

The conventions comprise the following rules. 1. Keep file names short, but meaningful.
2. Avoid unnecessary repetition and redundancy in file names and
file paths.
3. Use capital letters to delimit words, not spaces or underscores.
4. When including a number in a file name always give it as a
two-digit number, i.e. 01-99, unless it is a year or another
number with more than two digits.
5. If using a date in the file name always state the date ‘back to
front’, and use four digit years, two digit months and two digit
days if needed: standard format YYYYMM 6. Avoid using common words such as ‘draft’ or ‘letter’ at the
start of file names, unless doing so will make it easier to
retrieve the record.
7. Avoid using non-alphanumeric characters in file names.

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Today we made cakes

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:47:00 +0000

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Can I miss my imaginary children?

noreply@blogger.com (just.my2p) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:08:00 +0000

I was watching Waterloo Road on TV this evening (you have no idea how compelling it is to Sam who is 9) and there was a scene where a boy was suicidal, but saved by a teacher.

All well and good, except for some reason those kind of scenes really affect me. I get upset and tearful, for no real reason (that I can understand) and have to go off and calm myself down somewhere.

But that's not the reason for this post, although god knows it may be connected. No, the reason for the post is that it reminds me of my lost, imaginary children.

Yes, you heard me right, my lost imaginary children.

I had a serious illness a few years ago, blogged here if you are interested, and as part of my recovery I spent 10 days in Intensive Care on a ventilator under anaesthetic and when I woke up I had all these memories that were as real to me as the rest of my life. And they weren't even in the same ballpark in terms of possibility, some of them really out there (the Da Vinci house that was recreated for one party on New Years Eve and burnt to the ground that night, on purpose and that's the explicable bit). Some of those memories involved having significantly more children than I really had.

At that time, I have two children, Matt and Sam, they were 3 and 4 at the time. And in my mind I had four others This was a surprise to Elaine and everyone who knew me. Two, who I adopted after an ex girlfriend (imaginary of course, and what's wrong with imaginary girlfriends huh) committed suicide and asked me to adopt them, and two others who I adopted after rescuing them many years ago from a pretty strange set of circumstances in Scotland.

Whatever. What is strange is that I really, really miss them. They don't exist, they never existed, they only exist in my mind (and over time they dim and fade out), yet I miss them. I don't want other children, I'm so happy with the ones I have, but I bizarrely miss the one's I have in some sense lost. I don't do it all the time, but maybe when I am emotional I lose the sense of family and community that they kind of brought with them.

Anyway, at the end of the day I miss them and wish they were still here.

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