The Lazy Treastises of DB

Uber #0 by Kieron Gillen

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:52:00 +0000

Kieron Gillen's new comic book, Uber, is set in Berlin during 1945 at the last moments of WW2. With the Red Army on the streets of the city the Nazis cling to the hope of a super weapon to turn the tide before it's to late. As it turns out they unleash a group of super heroes on the poor unsuspecting Russians. Can we still call them super heroes if they are Nazis?

Of course Nazis are a pretty common plot device and even something of a cliche in comics or video games. You need a good selling point to stop the reader being jaded by it. Gillen's selling point is the brutal honesty of the writing. This is the war presented with out any filters, it is brutal and graphic and far removed from the propaganda of say war time Captain America.

In a piece at the back of the comic Gillen said he had been doing a lot of research into his story and sites historian Antony Beevor as a big source. His books, Berlin and Stalingrad, are must reads if you want to learn about this subject. Beevor has the skill of leaving out the stuffy history and picking up on the human stories to weave together a compelling narrative that gives us a good feel for what happened and the tragic cost of events. It is with a similar ideal that Gillen has approached this work.

He also states that he is not interested in a level of detail for having the right tank tracks but wants to include things that happened and try to give a true impression of how it was. As it happens I'm reasonably well read on this conflict, no expert, but knowledgeable non the less. I would say Gillen has done a very good job of showing the battle and the environment it was fought in. The book constantly impressed me with what it included such as the Russians putting mattresses on their tanks or the Hitler Youth on bikes carrying anti tank weapons. The Tiergarten Flak Towers looms large from the page and shows why it was such a key part of the battle for the city. All that reading and research has been put to good use and my historical inaccuracy radar was not set off.

Uber doesn't shy away from the darker elements of the Battle for Berlin such as the mass rapes carried out by the Russians or the executions carried out by the Germans. You see people hiding away in cellars hoping they will live through it. A sense of fear and disgust is always with you as you read the pages. Indeed Gillen says "I hope you find it fascinating and compelling. I hope you don't enjoy it."

Of course superhumans were not part of the war but they do not appear out of place with the real facts. They seem to have been created thanks to horrible experiments carried out by sadistic Nazi doctors. When unleashed towards the end of the book the result is bloody murder on a large scale. One gets the impression that they are there as devices to help with showing the brutality that the true elements of the book have already built up. We shall have to wait and see how the series develops but the superheroes so far do not feel like a gimmick or "cool" as they might in other books. Indeed they are in keeping with the deranged ramblings of Hitler and his talk of "super soldiers" and "wonder weapons".

Art is from Caanan White and matches the writing perfectly, always a vital goal for a good book. Has a slight feel of the old style war comics to it which really helps get you into the world. Berlin looks like a horrible place to be, which of course it would have been. The design of the ubers and their support units was very good. A slight twist on the actual uniforms to make them more menacing and suitable for a modern reader but still in keeping with the setting. Action scenes worked well and you get a real feel of the power that these super beings have. There is blood and guts and gore almost dripping from the page.

Uber was very impressive and one of the most interesting comics I've read in a while. A good story and good art and should be praised for not pulling any punches with the subject matter. As well as being a good read it might even help teach a little bit of history to the reader. I'm looking forward to seeing how the team build up the themes and story and more importantly how the Allies can fight back against these super Nazis.

Uber is from Avatar, issue 0 is selling out now and issue 1 hits shops next month.

Bioshock Infinite 1999 - Guide and Tips.

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:15:00 +0000

When announcing the 1999 mode prior to release Bioschock creator Ken Levine said it was not for average gamers and that they would hate it. Playing the game on this hardcore setting would make the game an incredibly hard test of gaming skill where death was inevitable. But rather than being like the masochistic torture of Dark Souls it's actually more like hanging out with some kittens and playing with balls of wool. Well, sort of. With a little bit of planning, strategy and the old classic of running away from a fight you can complete 1999 with very little trouble. I did and I'm pretty rubbish at games to be honest, here is how I did it.

The main bonus you have is that you've already completed the game and should know what you are doing and where to go. This was my third run through and the familiar feeling of levels was a great help.By knowing when and where an enemy will appear or where they might move to you can use the vigors to set traps and take them out with little effort. You will also know where the loot, gear and infusions are and you will need all of those you can get. Think about what lays ahead and how you can deal with, never rush in and hope to blast your way out.

Money is a key part of all this as it costs you coins to respawn after death (I think its 100). If you run out of coins you get booted back to the main menu. This happened once to me early on and I just went back in and loaded up my game again. You will die, perhaps a lot, but having a good stock of money in your wallet means it's not really an issue. I kept at least 1000 coins just in case but if things go very badly just exit and reload the game.You will need to spend money to upgrage your weapons and vigors too but only use a couple of these don't try to build up all of them.Make sure to collect lock picks and unlock the safes you come across.

Weapons

Personally I went with a sniper rifle and shotgun combo when ever I could. The sniper rifle is your best friend here because you can sit out of reach of the enemies picking them off at a distance. Head shoots tend to kill most human baddies with one hit. So many times in the game you can just sit back in realities safety and snipe away and being able to snipe makes the hard parts of the game a lot easier. I went for the shotgun becasue the blast staggers the opponent when hit and I preferred it to the others but anything that is good at close range can be used. It's the sniper rifle that is key. You might well run out of ammo from time to time but you are never that far away from another weapon.

sniper rifle is your best friend

Vigors

I found the choice of vigors to be a lot more important on 1999 mode and really they are the key to success.

Possession is obviously very useful for dealing with turrets and patriots and get's them fighting with the other bad guys who can help in taking them out. Shock Jockey and Devils Kiss are both useful and can be used to set traps. Personally I went with Shock Jockey as the firemen are immune to Devils Kiss,the Shock Traps are also cover a wider area.

The two really important vigors are Undertow and Return to Sender and you should upgrade these when you can. Undertow lets you knock people over the side and into oblivion. Whenever you are near a ledge just use this and you can take people out in seconds. It became an invaluable tactic for me and I would even try to lead enemies to areas where I could blast them over the rails. You can clear a barge full of bad guys out in quick time. Return to Sender is needed only for the last level where you can place traps to protect the core of the zeppelin.

Gear

One of the main difference in my 1999 run was that I made much more use of the gear and used them as part of my strategy. Once piece of gear makes it harder for mechanical enemies to spot you so obviously I used this when faced with them. When snipping I made sure I had the gear that adds a bonus for aiming down sights. The gears that give you more ammo or fill up health were very useful too. I believe the gear is a bit random but try to get as much of it as you can and be sure to pick and choose the right ones at the right time. Treat it like an RPG where the right equipment for the right job is important.

Infusions

Collect these when ever you can. My first pick was to max out my shield and then my health and not really worry about the salts. The benefit of the shields is that you can take some hits before you lose health and that shields regenerate but health does not. Much better to go and hide and what for you shield to come back than to lose health.

General Tips.

Run, run away. This is an option that can simply let you bypass a lot of fights. Once you make it to an area the enemies will disappear as the game loads up the next bit. With a good shield you can take some hits while you skip past everyone. You can cut out a lot of tricky encounters by just running. You really don't have to kill everyone you see.

Stay back. The other trick is to just stay back and use the sniper rifle to pick them off. Most bad guys will not leave their sector so if you stay far enough back they will leave you alone but you can still hit them. Make good use of doors, you can open a door hit the enemy and duck back behind the door.The patroits do seem to be more willing to hunt you down but generally you can manipulate the game mechanics to your favor.

Avoid fights. There are a few areas were you can simply avoid a fight. For example at Finkton Docks, just play it cool, don't start trouble and you can avoid a huge fight. Some of the side quests and other map areas can be left out so you don't waste time and resources on things that don't help you all that much. No need to go to the Salty Oyster or the tailors, just push on.

Set traps. you know where people will be so put traps there. Also set traps and then lead people to fall into them. Use the shock jockey to stun opponents or bronco to give you time to fight large groups.

Search for loot and pick the bodies clean, but leave health and salts if you're full as you might need them latter. Seems obvious but it's easy to click grab all rather than pick them individually.

Handyman

There is a glitch to beat the first handyman that get's him stuck on the roof. As shown Here.

The second handyman can be beaten by hanging around the tesla coil which will hurt him and lets you shot him while he is stunned. you might need to do a bit of Benny Hill running or escape on the rail and while it might take some time it's not that tough. A good way to take out the other enemies is to go to the high ledge, wait for them to join you and just use undertow to knock them off.

The third handyman, well for me I just avoided him for the most part and the other enemies took him out. This part sees the Vox and the Comstock troops fight each other, let them get on with it and take each other out. You can use the decoy to keep the handyman away from you. Again undertow people of the ledges.

Fourth Handman can simply be avoided by running past to the lift. Or if you want to kill him stay by the doors to attract him over, shoot, then duck back into the doors. This will make him go way so you you poke your head back out to bring him over, shoot him, hide again and so on.

Boys of Silence

The first one can not be avoided but if you turn around and run back to where the statue of Elizabeth is you can stand on the upraised pool of water. The Boys can not get up there and you can not be hit by them. Head shots from the sniper rifle kill them with one hit. The other BOS are easy to get past by avoiding being caught in their light.

Lady Comstock

Perhaps the only really hard part of this is the first encounter with the ghost of Lady Comstock. It took me a while but I got past by hiding in the crypt where the health tear is. (far left corner as you enter the graveyard) You can hide behind the tomb and for the most part the undead will not come into the crypt. You can then snipe way at Lady Comstock, make sure to equip gear that helps such as boosting critical hits. If you're lucky she might get a bit stuck as happened to me. Don't worry to much about the undead as they just get respawned. (Some people have used the ram vigor and a combo of gear to beat her in under a minute, check youtube)

Hide in the tomb to the left of this one

The secone encounter with the good Lady is straight forward if you stay in the bank vault. At first I noticed the undead would come into the vault but once I put some shock traps down they stayed away from me. Then just snipe away.

The third encounter is again nice and simple. Just go to the back of the map and snipe from the raised entrance to a locked door that has stairs on either side. (it overlooks the steps up to the statue). Lay down some shock traps to keep the undead away and snipe Lady Comstock. Might take some time but very easy.

turn around and go to the covered staircase to snipe from.

Final level on Zeppelin

Save yourself a whole heap of bother and just put a load of Return to Sender traps on the core. This stops a lot of damage and is the key to victory and makes this level pretty easy. The rocket men can be hit with undertow to knock them off the ship, the normal guys are no problem and die with one headshot, the barges are taken out by Songbird so you just have the patriots lefts. Again possession can help and there are some RPGs laying around too. Don't be shy with the vigor as there are plenty of blue bottles. Have Songbird take out the Zeppelins as soon as you can becasue until those are gone the enemies won't stop. But really with the fully maxed out Return to Sender buying you time and protecting the core this won't be a problem at all.

protect the core with return to sender

Boom, job done, and with out using dollar bill machines to the achievement. Pretty simple in the end, no where near as hard as say Call of Duty Veteran but still good fun.

Who's the best comic superhero of all time?

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:48:00 +0000

My little sister asked "Who's the best comic superhero of all time?" It's a very common debate in the world of comics and I thought it was worth discussion here.It can actually be quite problematic to reach a conclusion on this subject. Firstly people have their own opinion and it can all be rather subjective. You can't know every thing about all the characters in all the comics so it's easy to miss something out. Best is also a rather vague term for this, best at what?

Also given that it is all invented by writers things can change depending on the need of the story. There is always a way to have a super powerful evil character defeated. Most stories have a hero winning against the odds and defeating the unbeatable. Different things go on in different issues and abilties and powers can change.

Does make for an interesting debate but also one that nearly always gets out of hand. I must stress that this is not an attempt to make a definitive list nor rank anyone in order. No doubt I will miss out someones favorite but I only mention characters to aid the discussion. The focus is only the world of DC and Marvel since I'm not sure the other publishers have big enough worlds to make it interesting to use them. And while the title says superhero I will include the villains too as they are rather fun.

Ordinary Heroes

It would be hard to find a character that more embodied the ideas of superheroes than Captain America. (even if he's not technically super). He is the type of hero we all know and love, bold, brave, courageous and with a strong moral code. He is what we should all aspire to be, literally the best that humans can reach. One could say the same about Batman, all be it in a rather more gloomy less colorful way. They and those like them are the best heroes as they give you an ideal to aspire to.

The likes of Iron Man can use their super intelligence to make them big players in the comic book world. The Green Lanterns are normal people given a ring which is the most powerful artifact in the DC universe. With the ring they are impressive, with out the ring just like you and me. (Well perhaps not in the case of the talking squirrel one.)

My initial response to this question was Dr Doom. Yes a super villain but if you look at his recent history all he is trying to do is save the world and is prepared to die to do so. It could well be that he is the only one who can save us. That's pretty heroic, more so when doing it in the face of opposition from all others. Even if killing lots of people in the process is a tad wrong. But that would be my personal take on it of course. Certainly he's an interesting take on being a hero.

People like this stick to the literary tradition of brave heroes over coming the odds, fighting the good fight and winning the day. However they are at the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to powers and abilities.

Superheroes

Actual superheroes, those with superpowers, are the next level above the ordinary heroes. Born with or via some contrived means they have developed powers that normal humans do not posses. Superman or Spiderman would be the prime examples. It's generally these types of people that we think about when discussing this topic. Instead of thinking of who is the best hero we move on to who is the most powerful.

The Hulk has potentially unlimited strength given that it's fueled by his anger, the madder he gets the stronger he gets. Usually a lot of puny people get smashed but then he will turn into Bruce Banner who is pretty easy to take in a fight. One of the few people who can deal with Hulk is The Sentry. His powers exceed most of his contemporaries however he has so many mental health issues that he's unlikely to want to leave his house. Captain Britian likewise has no limites on his powers. But again his metal state can mean all you have to do is remind him of his alcohol problem and he will get sad and lose all his power. These three are potentially unbeatable but let down by other issues and they highlight part of the problem with this topic in that there are flaws that mean anyone could beat them.

In DC Superman and Wonder Woman stand as the two main Superheroes. We all know about Superman, his powers are so great they had to be reduced so that people could write good stories for him. Still this didn't stop Doomsday from "killing" him. Wonder Woman is a demi God and Amazon and can take on the Greek Gods. But again a foe, Genocide, nearly did for her.

You can also get the odd curve ball crop up. For example Deadpool, a master assassin and mutant with super healing power. His biggest power could be the ability to break the fourth wall. In the recent Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe (brilliant, well worth checking out) he, well, killed every one Marvel had. It was outside of the continuity but he is now killing off all other literary characters. That's pretty powerful.

Others wield power in a less conventional way. Namor could put together a pretty strong underwater army. If you control an army of super villains or are an evil genius like Lex Luthor then you could gain a lot of power. Aquaman can control fish (snigger). Swamp Thing could make the plants grow and cover the world, as he did to Gotham City. He could kill humanity in an instance and you can't kill him as he just regrows. Jean Gray is one of the most powerful mutant X Men and when the Phoenix Force gets into her incredibly powerful. Scarlet Witch got rid of most of the mutants with a thought. Some like Dr Strange or Constantine have studied powerful magic.You even have precocious kids like Jenny Quatum or Franklin Richards who could develop into very powerful characters.

Gods

Comics have quite a few God running through it's worlds. More powerful than superhumans, I mean how do you fight a God? Most of the main Gods of human civilizations can be found. Thor and his Norse family or the Greek Gods in Wonder Woman stories. There is also non earth Gods, or at least those who act like Gods, such as the guardians who run the Green Lanterns. Or the New Gods (written by Jack Kirby, amazing art, go read). There are even representations of Satan and demons.

Cosmic heroes

Above the supererhoes there are those who opperate on a more cosmic level. There are rather a lot of these and it's very hard to keep track of them all. They bascially get their powers from the cosmos or some other worldly way. The Silver Surfer and his power cosmic would be a good example. Generally they are more powerful than the superheroes. This category gives us the heaveist of heavy hitters. Darkseid, Impreiex, Anti Monitor, Doctor Manhatten, Thanos, Galactus, Beyonder, Watcher. All of them and others have powers that the superheors can only dream off. They manuiplete the world around them at a whim. So powerful that they rarely show up in plots, there is only so many times Galactus can devour your world.

The two most powerful of these would be Living Tribunal (Marvel) and Spectre (DC) No one else is considered to be as powerful as these two. Living Tribunal has pretty much unlimted powers and controls every thing in the Marvel world. Spectre can control time and space, he thinks something and it happens. He has no real weakness and unlimited power, no one in DC can match him. If you can think Superman out of existence, that makes you pretty tough.

The Best

But wait, there is one more level to go. What all this will show you is that both Marvel and DC have a hierarchic structure and what do we find at the top of the hierarchy? God. Both of them have a God head who sits above all others as the supreme being.They created everything, they control everything., they are God. Not some old pagan God or an alien God but a version of our bible God made for the comic world. In Marvel land he is know as One Above All (supposedly a tribute to Stan Lee) and in DC it's The Presence.

The Presence


One Above All

So ultimately while we can debate endlessly about who is the best, or in other words out favorite, superhero you can't beat God. As such it's One Above All and The Presence who are the best. Definitively, with out question, it's these two. All the other characters bow down to them and the people who make the comics will tell you they sit at the top.

Of course if we look at things in the real world, our world, and not judge things based on comic book folk lore than there really is only one answer. Superman. Nothing else from comic books has influenced the non comic world as much as him or had as much of an impact on culture.

Kentucky Tits - Week 3 vs Buffalo Bills

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:13:00 +0000

The Kentucky Tits went into game number three against the Buffalo Bills who had won both of their opening games. Sadly the star of their win against San Diego, Shudrez Watts, was still suffering from the injury he picked up in that game.

Buffalo took the first quarter 14-7 and there long passing game really paid off. Combined with s strong defense that never let the Tits get going they were proving to be quite a handful. Bills lead at 24-10 at half time.

In the 3rd quarter Brandon Harris made an interception for the Tits and returned it 82yds to score a touchdown. Ryan Ingram ran in another touchdown for the Tits but was broke his collarbone in the process. Later scans would show Ingram would be out for around nine weeks. He had only just come in for the injured Watts and now third string running back Williams would take to the filed. No doubt the coaching staff glad that they had failed to trade him earlier. A recovered fumble lead to a Kentucky field goal and the Tits went into the 4th

Williams made the most of his chance and scored a touchdown. With 1.30 left on the clock the scores were 34-31 in favor of the Tits. The Bills had the ball close to their own goal line and heavy pressure lead to them giving up a safety. Time ran out and the Tits took the game 36-32. A very tough challenge for the team but they overcame in great style.

Brandon Harris took the man of the match with 1 sack, 1 interception, 1 TD and a forced fumble.

Titter - More Fun Than Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:45:00 +0000

While trying to access Twitter and fulfill my social networking needs I found, by way of a spelling mistake, this magazine called Titter. The misplaced W proved a doorway to a world of glamour.

Titter was published in the 1940's by Robert Harrison and was know as "America's Merriest Magazine". The style had a firm focus on glamor and burlesque. Seems a shame we don't have such covers on display at the modern news stands.

Kentucky Tits - The New NFL Franchise.

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 20:58:00 +0000

Inspired by the recent Superbowl I decided to purchase a copy of Madden 12. Not 13 since that was not in the sale. I use to watch a lot of American football and play a lot of Madden however that was back when the Cowboys had a chance of winning things. So while not being new to the ether of them there was quite a lot of time to make up.

Quickly it became apparent that there was a chance, via create a team and the franchise mode, to do something great here. A new team was quickly taken shape, their new stadiums built, the uniforms designed. Uniforms that are in fact a bright green and purple affair that can at times induce a headache. The details of the new team were sent to the league administration and behold, a new team was born.

That team was the Kentucky Tits. (yes, yes I am that immature)

The Kentucky Tits

The Kentucky Tits are based in Beaver Dam, a rather charming place in Ohio County Kentucky. Were the around 3,000 inhabitants come out to the Field of Tits stadium (still immature) to see their new team play.

Now the NFL saw a need to have a team in this part of the USA and wanted to include the KT's in the new season. So out go the New England Patriots, who ever hates and in come the Tits, who ever one loves.

Since the draft is one of the most fun things about US sports I opted to fully embrace it and go for a full on fantasy draft. Not really knowing to many of the players it really didn't both me if a handful of guys were not at the right team. Wipe the slate clean I say and lets us build a new, with out those damn Pats to any us. And as I went to pick my first player for this new team of mine I thought to my self, "I shall only have rookies in my team". I assume the R stands for really good?

So that was the plan, pick a team full of nothing but rookies and sign only rookies in the future. What followed was a long, long process of putting that team together.

The top five draft picks were as followers.

1st Round Churphy Decatur QB 99 rating from Kansas State
2nd Round Shane Ryan FB 99 rating from Illinois
3rd Round Storm Weaks WR 99 from Oregon
4th Round Jorian Belton TE 91 from Florida
5th Round Shundrez Watts HB 91from SD State

Even managed to get some good ol local Kentucky boys named Tim Law and Randall Cobb to join the team. Once I worked out what all the positions actually were and sunk low in the ratings to stick with rookies I had ended up with a squad rated 78 overall. So perhaps the Lions should follow my lead?

All the game played are on pro level and full 15 minute quarters with all the normal rules in place. With that I ventured into the season looking to take the Tits to the Superbowl.

Week 1 saw us take on Miami to who sadly we lost 28-30. Storm Weaks made 3TDs and 247 yards receiving and Watts rushed for 117 yards. But the game showed how much ring rust had gathered from my last Madden outting.

Week 2 saw the team grow in ratings to 83 as they took on the San Diego Chargers. The Tits won the day 52-21, going 22-0 in the 3Q. Watts again starred making 3TDs and 378 yards rushing until he picked up an injury. His replacement, Ingram made 105 yards and 2 TDs. The Kt's defense also did well with 6 interceptions and 8 sacks. So after two games we were 1-1 for the season.

I was proud of my Tits, a new team of new players had done well. But how will the season pan out? can they really go all the way or will the lack of experience cost them in the end? Stay tuned for more Tits update.

Go Tits.

S Club Liverpool

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:02:00 +0000

Liverpool Football Club, could if they wished, field a starting elven consisting entirely of players whose surnames all start with the letter S. The recent acquisition of Daniel Sturridge has only added to this. Some players from the youth team have to be included so this line up is a bit inexperienced at the back. But does look like it could be a threat going forward.

Playing the 4-3-3 formation currently favored by Brendan Rodgers only gives us a slight problem in that there is no S right back so a center back has to move over. But in goal is Jaime Stepens, Left Back is Brad Smith, Martin Skrtel is Center Back and Stephen Sama and Jacob Sokolic fill up the other two defensive spots. The midfield trio is made of Suso, Jonjo Shelvey and Nuri Sahin with the front three being Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge. There is even room for a couple of subs with Jerome Sinclair and Jay Spearing (if you recall him from loan)

Jaime Stephens

Brad Smith

Jacob Sokolik

Martin Skrtel

Stephen Sama

Suso

Jonjo Shelvey

Nuri Sahin

Raheem Sterling

Daniel Sturridge

Luis Suarez

Drug Use Among Winners of Tour de France

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:21:00 +0000

Once upon a time I was a fan of cycling and the Tour de France, sadly this is no longer the case. My interest in the sport started in the 1990's and it was towards the end of that decade that some major doping scandals came to the fore. It was hard to see so many riders and some personal favorites being linked to drug taking. The sport seemed to be cheapened and I lost interest. The sport grabbed my attention again with the success of Lance Armstrong, we all know how that turned out. In the wake of the latest scandals I started to wonder just how prevalent doping had been in the Tour.

So what follows is a brief analysis of the winners of the Tour de France with the focus on their taking of illegal substances or riding clean. Looking at all the riders would be a much bigger task and I think what the winners got up to gives us a good impression.

Taking a list of all the winners I have split them up into two groups, "clean" and "dirty". Those I have labelled "clean" have never failed a drugs test and have no strong evidence from reliable sources that say they cheated. Those who are "dirty" have ether failed a drugs test, admitted they cheated or have strong evidence from a reliable source. They have cheated at some stage in their career, not necessary the tour that they won. No rumors or Internet forum chat has been used to form an opinion. Information that I've use to form this has come from pretty basic research conducted online. There is no analysis of performances or such like so it might well be I've got a rider in the wrong category. But I've choose to go with innocent until proven guilty and I feel all the dirty riders are on the right list. Dates that appear in brackets next to riders names show the year(s) they won the tour.

Drugs and the Tour

The Tour de France started in 1903 and can, for the sake of convenience, be split into three eras. Pre War 1903-1939, post war 1945-1980 and modern, 1980 onwards. Each era has seen riders using substance to improve their performance

Pre War Era

The very first tour was won by Maurie Garin (1903) and he won again the next year only to be stripped of his title for cheating. Not for drug taking but for the dastardly crime of taking a train rather than a bike. It seems the early days where akin to the Wacky Races and much underhanded pranks took place. Tacks where placed on the road and sometimes even fans attacked rival competitors.

The first real mention of drug taking came in 1924 when Henri Pelissien (1923) mentions taking cocaine. It should be noted that this was not against the rules and indeed actually an acceptable part of society in general. Cocaine and other drugs could be bought in shops and where seen as medicinal. Certainly riders where using drugs and alcohol as tonics to perk them up but it can not be seen as the doping that we have in current times. In the 1930 rulebook the organisers stated that "drugs will not be provided by the tour" but no mention of them not being allowed.

Records for the Tour were partly lost during WW2 so no real accurate study can be made of these times. It is very hard to say who was clean and who might have been cheating by modern standards. Given that drugs were not breaking the rules and the difficulty in researching we should move on from this time period. To save the honor of this era it's worth noting that three champions, Lucien Petit-Breton (1907/8), Francois Fabe (1909) and Octave Lapize (1910) all died as a result of serving in WW1.

Post War Era

After WW2 it becomes much easier to see what riders were getting up to. The first real mention of drug use comes with Fausto Coppi (1949/52). Indeed Coppi is generally seen as having started modern doping. He never hid the fact and claimed that cyclists took amphetamines "nearly all the time". His great rival Gino Bartali (1938/48) would sneak into his hotel room and find out what drugs Coppi and been taking and plan his race tactics based on this evidence. Bartali himself was a clean rider and something of a war time hero given that he helped the Italian Resistance and kept Jews safe.

Gino Bartali

Substance of choice for this era was amphetamine or similar such stimulants. Again one must point out that taking such things was not against the rules, it would be some time until they were.

Things started to change in 1952 when the Tour got a new doctor, Pierre Dumas. Dumas was very much against drug use in sport and was a pioneer of testing against such activities. He is quoted as saying "riders took anything they where given" "three quarters of riders were doped" and talked of riders injecting themselves as they rode. He set out to change all this.

1964 saw France pass it's first anti doping law and in 1965 doping became illegal in the Tour de France. The world of cycling had been shaken up by the drug related death of Knud Enemark Jensen who died at the 1960 Olympics. The deaths of Tom Simpson and Jose Samyn in 67 and 69 would like wise cause a shock and force people to take doping seriously.

Dumas brought in a drug test in 1965, which was greeted by a strike from the riders. The winner of the tour that year, Felice Gimondi, would later fail tests in 68 and 75. Charly Gaul (58) is said to have taken "vast amounts of pills" True legend of the sport Jacques Anquetil (57, 61-64) said "everyone takes dope". His point was that they worked hard and need the dope to do so. Fellow legend Eddy Merckx (69-72, 74) also took drugs. Bernard Hinault (78-79,81-82,85) was clean and means that there is a least one five time winner free from drugs, the other four are all drug users.

Modern Era

This time frame see the more sophisticated performance enhancing drugs being used such as steroids and EPO. Drug use becomes much more sophisticated and can be seen as a programme rather than just popping pills. EPO is a drug for sufferers of kidney failure and gives enhanced stamina and performance. Studies show that it can improve aerobic performance by up to 10%. However it thickens the blood and can cause heart attacks. It is likely to have caused the death of 18 pro riders between 1987-1991.

This modern era saw whole teams on drugs, with a treatment programme drawn up by team managers and carried out by team doctors. Doping was widespread and still as accepted as ever despite being illegal. Even if a rider was caught punishment was most likely to be a 10 minute time penalty as the tour sought to protect it's image and stars.

After Hinault and Greg LeMond (1986,1989-90) we quickly run out of clean winners. In fact from 1991 until 2007 every winner of the tour was a drug user. That's 17 straight years. This period has the other two cycling greats, Miduel Indurain (1991-95) and Lance Armstrong (1999-2005). This means that of the five biggest names in the sport only one, Hinault, was clean. Oscer Pereiro is the 2006 winner but original winner, Floyd Landis was stripped of his title for drug use.

Thankfully the last two winners, Bradley Wiggins (2012) and Cadel Evans (2011) are clean. With the 2010 title given to Andy Schleck after Alberto Contador was stripped for drug use. For some reason he gets to keep his two titles from 2009 and 2007.

Lance Armstrong

He was at one time the most successful rider in the sports history but has now been striped of all 7 of his titles for drug use. Unlike other times this has happened no one else has been given the title and there is officially no winner for this time period. An analysis of the results shows us why and gives good insight into what was perhaps the most extreme example of doping in the sport.

Looking at the top 10 finishers for each year that Armstrong won the tour we see that drug use was rife. If you gave the vacated tittle to the runner up you would still have a drug cheat as the winner. in 1999 7 out of the top 10 took drugs at some point in their career. In 2000 it was 9 out of 10, from 2001 until 2004 8 out of 10 took drugs and 2005 was 9 out of 10. For the years Armstrong won at least 80% of the top ten riders took drugs.

One has to feel sorry for the clean riders of that time. The true winners of the tours that Armstrong won should perhaps be as follows

1999 - Danille Nardello

2000 - Danille Nardello

2001 - Andrei Kivilev

2002 - Jose Azevedo

2003 - Haimar Zubeldia

2004 - Jose Azevedo

2005 - Cadel Evans

Of that list only Cadel Evans would go on to get the win that Armstrong et all had cheated them off. The top 10 for 2012 are all clean riders.

Doping Statistics

Some simple math can present us with some interesting statistics for drug use among the winners. Due to aforementioned issues we shall ignore the pre war years. Looking at the time post war and before the banning of drugs we have 19 Tours, with 8 riders being clean and 11 riders being on drugs. But again one must say they broke no rules in doing so.

After drugs were banned we have 48 tours with 16 clean winners and 32 on drugs (after two tittles changed hands from dirty to clean). This means that 67% of Tour de France winners took a banned substance and 33% are clean. That figure goes up to 70% with the original winners. Since 1965 only 8 people have crossed the finish line as winner with out doing drugs. And 10 clean riders are listed in the record books as winners in the same time period. The figure for post war pre testing era is 6 clean riders and 6 non clean riders. So since 1947 there have only been 16 people who won the tour clean with 24 wins between them from a total of 67 tours.

It seems pretty shocking that only 30% of winners did so cleanly. It's no wonder the image of the sport has taken such a beating and that every rider is under a cloud of suspicion. The large majority of winners have cheated at some point in their career.

Whats interesting is that for the most part the winners are the people who you would expect to win regardless of drugs or not. The list of Tour de France winners is also a list of the most talented riders. Greg LeMond would have more wins with out the cheats and some would argue Armstrong would not have won with out cheating. But the likes of Stephen Roche (87), Miguel Indurain, Bjarne Riis (96) and Jan Ulrich (97) were all the top riders of the time. There were lots of riders who took drugs just to compete or get a boost up the rankings but the winners of the tours who took drugs where good enough to win with out taking them. Perhaps that is the reason why they disappoint so much when they do cheat

Of course those who took drugs can point to the culture of cycling, the team orders and the difficulty in actually taking part in the sport for reasons for taking drugs. Sometimes they might have simply been following orders from a doctor as anyone would have done. They are all valid points to make in the cases but they don't excuse guilt. The issue of Lance Armstrong has caused shock not just because of his fall from grace but in just how ingrained and institutionalised his doping was. There was quite a witch hunt for him as well becasue he was such an unlikabe guy. Miguel Indurain got away with cheating because he was seen as a nice, humble person.

Thankfully post Armstrong the tour is actually making a big effort to clean up it's act and gives us riders who are drug free. It has to or else die out as a sport. Performance levels are dropping but trust is perhaps returning to the sport.

Bradley Wiggins helping to improve the sport.

UCI Suspicious List 2010

An example of the problems cycling has can be seen in the leaked document drawn up by the UCI (International Cycling Union) of suspicious activity in 2010. Every rider has a "blood passport" which has details of all the testing they have had done. Results are analysed to spot and long term trends that might point to drug use. It has proved successful in the past and caught out drug cheats. For the 2011 Tour the UCI compiled a list which scored all the riders from 0-10 based on activity that might seem suspicious.

A score of 0-1 suggest you are clean. 2-4 there is a one off anomaly that needs to be looked at. Scores of 5 upwards are causes for concern with a score of 10 being all but a guilty verdict.

49 riders scored 0 and 28 scored 1 making up around 38% of the tour riders. 78 riders scored 2-4 which was about 39%. 42 scored 5 or more meaning that the UCI had worries about 23% of the people taking part in that years tour. 14, riders scored 8 or more which is 7% of the totality. Again this figures point to high drug use among all the riders, not just the winners. If the governing body feel that around a quarter of it's riders might have taken drugs, that 7% almost certainly have then that really is a worry.

Lance Armstrong scored 4 as did Cadel Evans. Alberto Contador and Bradley Wiggins both scored 5, Contador won the race but was caught using drugs so perhaps this list has it's flaws if Wiggins and Evans are scoring the same as Armstrong and Contador.

The riders union were quick to point out that scores on this list can be affected by illness and injury and that riders can also be judged on performances. So it is not in itself conclusive proof but more of an early warning system. But the numbers scoring at either end of the scale do give some useful information. What it does point out is that drug use is still a big problem for the sport. Hopefully the last few tours are able to move the sport in the right direction and perhaps one day we shall have a fully clean tour with no doubts about the winner.

The Jesus and Many Trains

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 21:17:00 +0000

The Jesus and Many Trains.

Videos donated to charity shop I volunteer at.

Kate Middleton Topless

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:13:00 +0000

Here is a picture of Kate Middleton topless.

A Terribly Dashing Photo

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 11:19:00 +0000

Here is a terribly dashing photo featuring (L-R) David Niven, Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone who stared together in the film Dawn Patrol. I think it must be the pencil moustaches that does it.

Power Girl

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 15:19:00 +0000

One of the my favorite comic books of the last few years has been Power Girl, the run that started in July 2009 and went on for 12 issues. It was written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray with the art of Amanda Conner, and it was awesome.

To be honest I'd never heard of Power Girl before I picked this up and wasn't all that bothered about most of the DC world (Wonder Woman aside). But I'd heard good things and liked the look of the first issue so gave it a try. Off the back of that I'd now say Power Girl is one of my favorite super heroes and I've since ventured into DC land a lot more and decided they are no longer the enemy.

What struck me about this book was just how much like an old comic it was. I adore reading the pre 1980's stuff as it's just so much fun and entertain. Power Girl was just that, fun, I even laughed out loud a few times. It just gave me such a kick to read it. The artwork has an old school vibe to it as well which went perfectly with the writing.

However the writing was able to show some sophistication that old comics lack and wasn't just corny nostalgia. It took elements from the old days but updated it with elements from modern comics. There was even time to get slip a little bit of feminism and tackle the assumptions about Power Girl and female super heroes in general.

Alas I rather fear that Power Girl and the other women of comics get a hard deal and are not treated the same as the males or taken all that seriously. Which is a real shame as there are some amazing female roles out there, DC is particular good at them these days.

Of course the problem with Power Girl is that she is blond and has huge boobs, which she shows off with her infamous "boob window". So I guess she is just dismissed as sex object or pin up or the crazed imagines of pervert. Given that she's a super powered Kryptonian and thus extremely powerful quite why anyone would ignore her is beyond me.

Power Girl has big boobs

When speaking to bleedingcool.com Amanda Conner has this to say.

"..there’s a lot of controversy about Power Girl’s boobs. Frankly, her big boobs are part of her whole persona. People asked me, “Why didn’t you give her smaller boobs?” I said, “Then it’s going to become all about the boobs.” We wanted to acknowledge that she looks the way she looks and move on to the story. She just happens to be a character that has gigantic boobs."

Which sums up how I feel, that's how she looks, lets move on. She might once have a creation of a less enlightened time but she can be reinvented for our modern values.

The artwork from Conner is fantastic and goes really well with both the relaxed humor side of the book and the more full on brutal action scenes. Power Girl likes a scrap, hits hard and is pretty brutal about it all. A favorite tactic of hers is to just fly at you really fast. I liked that she had a look on her as if she was amused by something but wouldn't share the joke.

The creative team left after issue 12 and the book was passed on to others and made it up to issue 27 until the The 52 change every thing. It's still a good book but the style and vibe hand changed quite a bit and become more dark and in keeping with what you expect from modern comics. Perhaps this was due to Batman making some appearances. These days Power Girl can be found teamed up with Huntress in Worlds Finest, which so far is proving to be a good read.

You take the fun, the humor, the great action, slick writing and top draw art and it forms a pretty much perfect book. There's even an evil albino gorilla, a psycho badger and a cameo from the guys in Big Bang Theory. What's not to like?

Here's some of Conners artwork.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:03:00 +0000

Having just complete Ghost Recon Future Soldier (GR) I thought and post my thoughts on the game. On the whole it's a little bit of a disappointment. There's nothing really wrong as such with the single player game and in many ways it's actually quite good. But and it's a big but, GR seems to have changed to attract a wider section of the market. In doing so the game seems to lose some of what made other GRs stand out from the crowd.

The GR games of the past have always seemed to have more thought put into them than the usual war based FPS. They have take more of an intelligent approach and given you a game that is a bit more grown up. However this time around it feels some what dumbed down and has lost it's identify.

The plot, such as it is, seems rather generic, those pesky Russians having a civil war again. I'd expect something a bit more interesting from something that has the name Tom Clancy attached to it. There are some good set pieces written into the game and nice interaction between the four protagonists. But by and large it feels like an episode of The Unit when you really wanted it to be like 24.

Some missions are great and you really feel like a ghost doing some recon. Others are very frustrating and seem to be anything but stealthy.At certain points you are just blowing up every thing you see. And in some cases it should be called UAV recon as you can just use that to work your away across the level. On the whole I've found it to be a little bit above average game. It does look very good and handles well but it's really just more of the same stuff that all these games have. To me it seems to lean more toward Call of Duty (COD) and less towards Splinter Cell. Indeed some levels do seem to be "inspired" by COD.

Single player seems to suffer the same way that a lot of FPS do in that the idea seems to be an add on for the multi player (MP) game. It used to be the other way around but these days you get a short campaign as you're supposed to spend all your time on MP.

As for the MP, again it's a bit frustrating. They do a lot of things right such as rewarding team play over going it alone. You only get 75xp for killing someone but can get 300xp if you spot some one with a UAV who then gets killed. There's a bonus for using cover or suppressing people. The best way to get the most points is to go for objectives. You could actually not kill anyone and get far more xp than some one who has run around killing everyone.

It's good to see people using cover and trying to support each other and playing as a team. When you don't do this you get slaughtered. So far I've not found anyone cheating or being a annoying which is rather nice. And as far as I can tell none of the three classes seem to dominate the games over the others. You can get stuck in your spawn but then it moves you after a while.

The gunsmith thing is a bit pointless and flashy for something where you just add new scope or whatever. It does give you a lot of customization options but it's really just window dressing.

Where I think it all falls down is with the maps and game types. The maps are far to small for this game. They are COD maps, meant for action rather than sneaking and tactics. It's like asking people to play Battlefield (BF) on COD maps. In the end most games play the same way and end up with gun fights for key areas or in the middle of the map. The game types also don't help and a bit more thought would have been good. It's all just about having a firefight in a small area. I remember GR on the xbox having much bigger maps and more interesting game types.

On the whole it's a bit of disappointment, not necessary a bad game but not one that blows you away. Feels like a step in the wrong direction and one of the weaker efforts for GR It's not what I was hopping from a GR game. Not very often in SP and never in MP do I feel like a sneaky person up to no good while the bad guys have no clue what I'm doing. Most of the time it feels like an arcade COD style game but not as good as COD. It's a shame because if they thought more about the maps it could have been a very good mp. It might be able to hold it's own against the likes of Medal of Honor but it's still behind COD and BF.

For me I think it ranks at 6 or 7 out of 10.

Lesbian Pulp Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Sat, 26 May 2012 15:20:00 +0000

Squatty Potty - The Toilet Stool

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:43:00 +0000

Squatty Potty - The Toilet Stool

Having problems pooping? Always constipated?

Then perhaps you should try Squatty Potty, the new way to poop. Turns out that sitting down on the loo is not the natural way and that in fact we should all be squatting instead. Which makes sense when you stop to think about it, all though try not to think about it to graphically.

Squatting allows everything to be at the correct angle where as sitting puts a kink in the tube which means we have to apply some force. This can cause all kinds of health issues for us, issues which the makers of Squatty Potty claim their product can eliminate.

Some advice from me is that you can't make a home made one of these using shoe boxes, they will collapse.

"Assuming the squat position is the natural way to achieve easier and more complete elimination."

"It is Squatty Potty’s goal to change the way we poop, one “stool” at a time."

"Start Squatting for only $29.95"

http://squattypotty.com/

Football Fashion Faux Pas - Pablo Aurrecochea

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:08:00 +0000

Pablo Aurrecochea is a goalkeeper from Uruguay currently playing for Paraguayan team Guarani. He's rather fond of wearing extravagant football kits. Here are just a few examples of his fine work.

Goliath by Tom Gauld.

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:32:00 +0000

Goliath is the latest book from Tom Gauld and presents us with the tale of David and Goliath told from the point of view of the giant Philistine.

The big twist here is that Goliath is a peaceful man far removed from the brutish warrior depicted in the biblical story. Gauld presents us with a protagonists who doesn't like fighting and "manly does admin". He swaps his patrol duties for more administrate tasks and sits happily at his table working away in peace.

Until that is someone comes up with a plan to end the war that requires Goliath to issue a daily challenge to the enemy. That's despite him being the "5th worst swordsmen in his platoon". Of course this doesn't matter because he's a giant and can beat anyone, besides who would fight a giant in the first place?

A suit of armour is made for him and a young shield bearer serves him. The lack of his own armour again points to his less than war like ways. Despite his reluctance he understands that this plan could save a lot of lives and end the fighting and so he sets about fulfilling his duties.

Tom Gauld's artwork is deceptively simple, almost child like, but is always brilliant. Whats more it's very well suited to telling us an old historical tale. It reminded me a lot of the Bayeux Tapestry and just seems to really fit the story.

There are some wonderful touches as well such as Goliath not always fitting instide the frame of the picture. And Gauld is not afraid to leave text out and let the art do the story telling. Some nice, and funny, dialogue goes own between the giant and the boy which help to make the reader feel a great deal of sympathy for Goliath.

Of course we all know how the biblical tale pans out and as you near the end of the book you start to worry if the fate of Gauld's Goliath will be the same. Indeed we even have Goliath absent-mindedly playing with a pebble at the start of the book. By the time a rather brash David turns up you are very much against him.

This book presents us with some interesting ideas. Goliath is a peaceful man who doesn't won't to fight yet does his duty. People judge him and form expectations based on his appearance rather than on who he actually is. The roles of hero and villain have been reversed and perhaps gives us some insight into how these labels might not be so easy to define. We can see that the nature of conflict is not always as simple as it's brutality might have us believe.

Goliath is a wonderful comic book, one of my picks of the year, a good example of what the medium can do and I highly recommend it.

How to ruin the childhood memories of a male aged over 30

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 11:26:00 +0000

Album of the Week - Dave Betton

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:08:00 +0000

Dave Betton - At Your Request (Denman DD106)

That's a pretty snazzy suit Dave has on I'm sure you would agree and the collar on the shirt would make Harry Hill jealous. Still I'm sure at the time it was very fashionable so lets over look that. The flowers are very pretty although I'm not sure they make for a very interesting background. But what really struck me about this album cover as is just why on earth he's standing in the flower bed and not on the path? Strange bit of composition that.

At your request starts off with Once in a Lifetime - Tonight, a song that sounds like the theme tune to a 1970's quiz show. The Al Jolson medley of songs will of course sit a little uneasy with a modern listener although it's a pretty good impression none the less. The rest of the album varies in style from country to jazz to crooner ballads.

It would be easy for us trendy hipster types to dismiss Dave Betton as nothing more than a club singer, the type you might find in Butlins. His style is very much that of a cabaret performer or entertainer. But to give him his due Dave does have a good voice. On some songs you get hit with a sudden blast of power or notice a note being held longer than one might expect. Clearly the guy can sing even if the songs do all have that same club singer style in the background. His voice is also rather versatile, there's a pretty good impression of Johnny Cash up on his facebook page (25 likes).

Yes that's right Dave is still going strong today and is available for bookings via Hawthorn Entertainment. And as "..an all round entertainer, amazing singer and comedian" has become one of the "..most popular cabaret performers with Thompson Gold Hotels in venues throughout the Mediterranean." Over the years he has played Blackpool many times and earned the nickname "Mr Blackpool".

It doesn't come as a surprise that he's a hit with the cruises and in Blackpool. Seems like something that suits his talents down to the ground. If you like that sort of thing I'd imagine Dave would be hard to beat and I'm sure those who see him have a good night.

"Dave’s act is a potpourri of all that is best in cabaret entertainment and on or off stage he is the ultimate professional." Things do seem to get a bit Alan Partridge at times though.

I might add that is a signed copy.

Dave Betton Facebook page

(all albums of the week have been picked form donations to my local Save the Children shop)

Why Harry Redknapp Should Not be England Manager.

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:41:00 +0000

Harry Redknapp might be the hot favorite to take the role of England manager but there are some good reasons why this might well turn out to be a bad idea.

The FA is seems insistent that their next employee be English and looking at a list of my compatriots it would be hard not to put Harry at that top of that list. He might only have one trophy to his name but I think only Steve Mcclaren can better that and he already had a go at the job. The others don't really inspire all that much, for whatever reason Englishmen have not really shown as managers in recent times.

Apparently there is now a shortlist of ten names that meet the requirements. Harry, Stuart Pearce and Roy Hodson would seem obvious. Like wise Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce but after that you really start to struggle to think who else there really is. Not that people in lower leagues are not doing a good job but you can't really see Brian McDermott or Ian Holloway making the list. There's always Hope Powell who has actually take England to a major final but clearly that is never going to happen.

So it's not exactly a stellar list of the biggest names from football, not even from English football. But do we really need a big name or someone dripping with success?

It's far to say that England have tried all kinds of different approaches in the last few years. While some have provided more opportunities than others none have meet with success. Capello was as good as they come, Mcclaren was a friend of the players, Keegan a good motivator and Sven kept the players happy. You name it we've tried it.

What exactly does Harry have to offer? It's fair to say the Spurs are playing some great football at times but they do also come unstuck against better teams. Which might actually make him the perfect man for the job. He has always struck me as something of a wheeler dealer character. The sort of person who brings in players on free transfers or from aboard and gets the best out of them. I don't think he's as naive tactfully as he can come across but he does tend to come up short against bigger footballing brains. He deserves his place on the shortlist and it's hard to look beyond him but it strikes me that the skills that make him a good club manager are not ones that would work at the national level.

Perhaps my biggest concern with Harry is that he's not all that big on bringing through younger players and would I suspect prefer to stick to the old guard who have failed in the past. He did bring through some young players at West Ham, but that's kind of the law at the club. At Spurs Kyle Walker is getting a chance but is the only under 21 player in the squad. And during the last transfer window in brought in two players aged over 30. There is not really much chance of a good young player getting into the team at Spurs. Not to mention the talk of him bringing Scholes back into the team.

It worries me because I'd much prefer to see us fade out the old players and give the younger ones a chance to play. I don't really see Harry doing this at all. We shouldn't look to play like other nations but we can learn lessons from them. I'd present Germany as a prime example of this. They had a very good under 21 team and decided to fade out the older players. Look at what happened, they are now one of the best teams in the world. Joachim Low was not exactly a top class coach but he had a vision and a plan. The talented young players where given a chance and responded. I'd like to see England do this. All I am saying is give kids a chance.

The top teams are prepared to spend money and give chances to the likes of Jones, Henderson and Chamberlain. So why not give the chance at national level? Of course they are not as good as the players they would replace yet but if you never give them the chance they never will be. Take all the kids to the Euros, let them get a feel for it. Defoe and Crouch might well do a good job but I'd rather Welbeck and Strurridge played. They might well fail but do we expect anything else currently? Let the exuberance of youth have some fun and learn for the world cup.

Admittedly I have no idea who could do this, perhaps Pearce as he has worked with them all before. Hopefully at the interviews someone might actually have a vision and a plan of how to develop things and build for the future. Harry might give a short term boost but he's not really one for forging a grand plan. Harry would be a very short sighted appointment.

Female Representation in Politcs.

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:48:00 +0000

Which country has the best representation of women in its parliament?

Take some time to to think about that one. Surely it must be one of those right on free thinking liberal countries where every one is happy and they have great cheese? Yes that's correct, the answer is Rwanda.

You read that right, because with 56.3% of its lower house being women Rwanda tops the table for female representation. Which for a country that for three months in 1994 saw between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped is a hell of an improvement. 67% of those women raped contracted HIV via the use of infected males as a weapon of genocide. So some where along the line Rwanda gave up this horrifying trend and now has something to be proud off with regards to its treatment of women.

The table comes from the Inter Parliamentary Union and is based on information given by the various national parliaments. Unsurprisingly Scandinavia takes up four of the top ten spots with Sweden (45%), Iceland (42.9%), Finland (42.5%) and Norway (39.6%) all proving just how nice they are in that part of the world. Andorra (50%), South Africa (44.5%) The Seychelles (43.8%) and Cuba (43.2%) all make it into the top ten. Surprisingly so does Nicaragua (40.2%) a country that bans abortion and doesn't bother to investigate crimes against women.

Disappointingly one has to do a lot of scrolling down to find the UK. All the way down to 49 in fact with a score of 22%. Things are worse for the USA as you need to drop down to 71st place. Both countries come below Afghanistan which is a country where rape victims get put in jail. Of course any Afghan woman who stood for election in the face of death threats should be praised. In fact it's surprising the number of countries that have poor human rights records that are in the top half.

But does this actually mean anything or matter at all? After all the UK and USA are not terrible places for women to live in, certainly much better than Afghanistan one would suggest. And is this actually an example of sexism at work? Do we and our dear cousins need to sort this out?

Just because there is not a 50/50 split of male to female in a Parliament does not in itself mean things are unfair. One would always hope that the best candidate is voted in to power. Sometimes there might be a reaction against a party such as with Labour in the last election. Both of these could cause a higher number of men to get power with no hint of sexism at work.

It could just truly be the case that at the moment men where the better persons for the job. Although the fact that it never goes the other way to mostly women might disprove this. Perhaps the number of MPs is not the key thing here. Perhaps its best to look at the all the candidates who stood for election. After all you can only vote from those that are picked by the parties.

Figures from the Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics show that out of the 3223 candidate who stood 23% were women. The Green Party put up 32% female candidates and UKIP had the lowest with 15%. Not one party had a 50/50 split of male to female. So there is already an imbalance due to lack of choice and representation before the elections. In Northern Ireland some places had no females standing for election at all.

Statistics are all well and good but they might be misleading in the strange world of politics. Not every candidate put forward by a party is expected to win by them. For a variety of reasons it's not realistic to expect every party to put up a male and female candidate in every area. Would there even be enough women interested in politics to make this happen? and if not why not?

David Cameron's cabinet has just 17% women in it. No one wants to see a woman given the job based purely on her sex, those who get the posts should be the best people for the job. But given the number of Public School pals, Tony Cronies and Brownites that have made up the cabinet in recent years can we say that people have not already been getting posts they did not merit?

It's not like UK politics has been devoid of talented and capable women in the past. Clearly there is something holding them back. I find it hard to believe that there are not enough women who could do the job to make up the short fall. And I'm not sure that society in general is against the idea enough to not vote for them if they wanted to. It's hard to come to any other conclusion that its the political establishment it's self that is preventing women from becoming part of it.

Whatever the cause and effects might be women are under represented in Parliament and politics in general. Perhaps we need to push forth and smash down the last out dated barriers of sexism in the UK. Or perhaps those barriers fell long ago and we just need to encourage women to take up the opportunities. Although I strongly suspect the former to be the case and I think it's an institutionalised sexism were things are just accepted and assumed to be true. The problem with institutionalised inequality is that it's much harder to prove than out right hate.

I acknowledge that I've solved nothing here but have merely tried to explore what the above statistics might mean. In any case if you find yourself below Afghanistan in a table that focuses on women and equality you clearly have a problem you need to address.

The IPU table can be found here -
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm

Date from the Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics can be found here - http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/election.html

Information on human rights records of all nations can be found here.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/annual-report/2011/country-data

Application for job as new England Manager.

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:08:00 +0000

Dear FA I would like to formally apply for the job of England manager. I know I might seem like an unknown but I am in fact the most successful football manager ever. While playing FM2008 I led Liverpool to 10 league titles and 7 European Cups, not to mention a vast number of lesser cups. Then I went to Real Madrid and won 5 leagues and 3 European Cups. I'm sure you will agree that having a person with 10 European Cup trophies to his name can only be a benefit for the England team.

I also have plenty of international experience with 3 African Cup of Nations Trophies and a North American Gold cup trophy with Nigeria and the USA respectively. While in charge of England I lost one game in 10 years, to Croatia in a friendly, and won 2 World Cups and 2 European Cups. Again I'm sure you can see how this will be a plus, I am after all the most successful manager ever. Better than Fergie or Paisley or Gary Neville.

My teams play an expansive, quick moving attacking style of football. I pick the most talented and skillful players and look to entertain the public. We might conceded 3 goals but will score 5 and have a lot of fun doing it. Any player who doesn't perform gets shouted out and told to buck their ideas up. I ony accept the best

I have some ground rules I must insist on, these have been the basis of my undoubted success.

1 Steven Gerrard will play in every game, even after he retires from club football.

2 No Man Utd players will ever play for England (many point to my insistence that all English players leave Man Utd as one of the main reasons the club has not won the league for so long and I'm sure we can all be happy about this)

3. My star player is Clive Simpson, who currently does not exist. As such we shall need to clone him. If we start on this now he should be ready by the Euros.

4. At some point in the future I will get bored and restart my managerial career in another dimension. Don't worry I won't delete your dimension, it shall serve as a memorial to my greatness.

I look forward to hearing form you soon

Before Watchmen

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:28:00 +0000

DC have confirmed that a series of prequels to Watchmen are set to be published and will focus on telling the story of each character. It's proven to be quite the hot topic in the comic book world with much debate focused on whether revisiting this classic is a good idea or not.

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, the original creators of Watchmen are not to be involved in any of the project. Al tough given how Moore feels about DC that was never going to happen. He effectively turned his back on the company over his mistreatment at their hands when the Watchmen was first brought out in 1986.

A new batch of creators have been brought in to work on it and its a mighty impressive roll call of some of the best in the business today. The likes of Brian Azzarello, Darwyn Cooke and J. Michael Straczynski involved it's unlikely any of the books will actually be bad. (If you like comics you owe it to yourself to read Darwyn Cooke). I'm not going to start hating all these people for it as they have done things I've loved. They've also done things I didn't like or just plain didn't read due to lack of interest. You have to let the creators do what they think best and then pick and choose from that. Even if it is a little bit disappointing that they are doing this.

So what are people complaining about?

Well for me it doesn't really matter who they get to work on it or how good the books are, I'm not interested in it at all. I don't hate it or think it shouldn't be allowed, I'm just not interested in it. For the same reasons I wouldn't buy a Before War and Peace book or Before Highway 61 Revisited record. There really is no need for them and it's diluting a thing of genius in order to make money. I really can't see what they will add to the original.

Watchmen stands as a high water mark for comic books. If ever comics are to be thought of as art then this is one of its master pieces and Alan Moors is it's Da Vinci. It would have been nice if DC had treated the book with the respect it deserves. By all means bring out fancy editions of it and I guess if you want to make a bad movie version then fine, but could you not just leave it alone and let it sit as the crown jewels in your library of work?

Moore himself had this to say "I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago,"

Which frankly is a good point. DC has just refreshed the industry with the whole New 52 thing do they really want to go back to Watchmen? Or are they just hoping for a second movie? Having gathered all this talent why not get them to create new things?

Apparently DC have long been asking Moore and Gibbons to do more Watchmen stuff but they always refused. The fact that they said no should have been an end to it. They both felt they had said all they wanted to. Watchmen is a one off piece of work, not an ongoing series, it's already complete so why try to shoe horn in a load more stories? We already have the back stories of all the characters so why elaborate on them?

DC have said they always need to revamp their characters and keep them up to date. Sure, that makes sense for your ongoing books that never stop but not for a stand alone work. Also if that is they case then why do some characters get dropped never to be seen again?

Some would argue that Alan Moore has himself taken other peoples characters for his own work. True enough but he's was creating something new in the process and not simply extending the stories the borrowed characters originally come from.

One wonders where DC, or comics in general, would actually be with out Alan Moore. He ushered in the modern age and the era of the graphic novel. If DC can have success with the Batman movies then Moore helped make it so. He gave the industry a credibility and artist flourish that has made it possible for comics to be seen as something an art form. Perhaps DC should show him a little bit of respect, you know, given that they kind of owe him.

Sure these days Alan Moore can often come across as a grumpy old man and out of touch with the way things are in comics these day. But if he says he doesn't want this to happen can't DC just say OK and leave it at that? Just because they can make these books doesn't mean they should. Just because you screwed the guy out the rights to the book doesn't mean you should try to wring ever last dollar out of it.

The word prequel will always conjure up horrible images of the Phantom Menace. Star Wars is actually quite a good analogy here. George Lucas made something wonderful and then spent the rest of his life trying to make as much money as he could of the back it. Does Phantom Menace make Star Wars a worse film? No, but it does rather cast a horrid Jar Jar shaped shadow over it. And the name Star Wars doesn't have the same prestige it once did.

Of course every comic book geek thinks they know best about how to run the industry. And we as a group can get very defensive over things. I don't really expect DC to pay any attention to what I think is best. I'll just ignore the books and stick to annoying friends by lecturing them about how great the original is and why Alan Moore is a genius.

FIFA and the Poppy

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:17:00 +0000

The English nation football team plays and game against Spain on this Saturday, which just happens to come a day after Armistice day and a day before Remembrance Sunday. These of course being the days we pay respects to those killed while serving in the armed forces. To fit in with such events the English Football Association wanted the team to wear a poppy on their shirt. Poppys of course being a symbol of respect and remembrance for the dead. However FIFA, the governing body of the sport have refused the request and public outcry has followed.

On the face of it this seems rather daft. What, after all, could be wrong with remembering those who gave their lives to stop the Nazi's? Or protected us from other threats. It won't upset the Spanish as we had stopped fighting them long ago.

But no, FIFA refused. They don't let anything appear on the shirt that is political or commercial. They do have a long history of being corrupt, stupid and out of touch but for once they are spot on with this.

I'm not really sure they are worried about this causing offense to people. Germans would be happy with us paying are respects. Indeed there are a great many examples of Germans paying their own respects to our dead during WW2 itself.

Perhaps some Muslims might not like it given the current wars but those that did take offence are likely just looking for an excuse to do so. And I can't really see any actual governments making a fuss expect perhaps Iran and that guy is nuts anyway.

There might not actually be any thing wrong with the poppy at all but if you allow that you have to allow a lot of other things and this is were trouble can brew. FIFA are simply trying to keep football neutral and avoid political issues growing out of a simple game.

What would be the reaction of the UK if Argentina wanted to remember its dead from the Falkland Wars? Our view might be that they were invaders and how dare they. Of course for them, given that we stole it in the first place, they could legitimacy be seen as liberators.

Japan has shrines to its dead from WW2, how would we all feel if they used their shirt to pay respects to people who have a less than healthy reputation for human rights?

How about if North and South Korea played each other or Vietnam and the USA? They are lots of potential examples of an "international incident" occurring. By having a blanket ban FIFA avoid this.

Its important that football does all it can to not be tools of governments and leaders. Saddam, Gaddafi and Hitler all tried to use the national football to promote and further their government and ideology. If you allow things on shirts you run that risk.

Of course that is an extreme example and perhaps not the same as the humble poppy. But red flower would be pushing the door ajar and once open how do you control what else goes through?

Is this political correctness gone mad? Well at the 1938 Berlin Olympics the England team gave a Nazi salute to honour Hitler. So perhaps a little bit of PC is a good thing these days.

The other point is to avoid things being commercial. We should not forget that the poppy is actually a corporate logo. Its the symbol of the Royal British Legion, sure they are a charity but its a logo none the less. If you let one logo why not let others? why not charge? Best to avoid running the risk of shirts being rented out. Even if you just stick to charity logos you can cause issues as some of them are political motivated. China want want you playing in Free Tibet shirts.

Given that there will be a minutes silence, a wreath and members of the armed forces at the game I don't think FIFA are stopping anyone from remembering things. They are just trying to protect the integrity of the game. I guess to do that they need to be a little bit firm on a cause that might not warrant such stance if seen on its own merits.

Ultimately if England want to play a game sanctioned by FIFA they abide by the rules or don't bother playing.

What seems a shame is that the media and general public have made such an issue out of this. Yet seem to not really care about the causes the poppy raises money for. Its not just about respecting the dead but helping the living. High numbers of former soldiers are homeless, in jail or mentally ill and there is a very high suicide rate. Little is done to help them but instead of lobbying the government and trying to change this people complain about the lack of a poppy on a football shirt. Missing the bigger picture somewhat.

And yes I freely confess to being a left wing liberal who loves political correctness and hates war. But I've also bought a poppy every year. In fact I've been to memorial services in Europe, stood at the graves of the fallen and viewed the fields were there fell. I just don't think FIFA are being unjust or disrespectful.

The New DC 52 - Review of What I Read

noreply@blogger.com (DB) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:08:00 +0000

So a month has passed since DC's grand relaunch of its comic books and we have had the chance to read all of the 1st issues. On the whole it seems to have been a grand success, sales have gone through the roof and some issues have gone to 2nd and 3rd prints already. There has been a lot of excitement generated and people have been enthused about comics again.

Certainly from my point of view I've been looking forward to getting my various comics in the post. I've never subscribed to new comics before so its been a new experience for me and one that I've enjoyed. Now as we hit the next month I'm having the fun of getting issue 2 turn up for me to continue on with the adventures.

It also looks like people have been attracted back to reading comics with all the interest. And fresh, readers have also wanted to take a peek at whats happening. Also good to see positive reception from female readers because lets face it, comics have not always been that friendly to them.

Hopefully this will make Marvel sit up and take note because they have become very stale and really need to do something to gee themselves up. Perhaps they will stop worrying about films and get back to comic books. They need to do something as DC have just taken up a huge chunk of my reading time and never used to bother reading them at all.

Although I'm sad that so far my beloved Power Girl seems to have been left out of things.

To be honest I didn't pick up the full 52, think I went for about 13 in the end. I will never read Batman or Superman and don't really care about Flash. A lot of the other stuff just didn't interest me. But on the whole what I read impressed me.

There are three Green Lantern related books and all of them were good with out really impressing. You kind of need to just sit and wait for things to unfold but it should be worth the wait. The main book is written by Geoff Johns who is one of the top writers and he always does good stuff with Green Lantern. Things are still waiting to take shape but I like the characters so will stick with it.

Sort of going with this is a Red Lantern book. It looks pretty good but I'm not sure it will keep my interest for too long. Nothing wrong with it per say its just how many Lantern books do I need right now?

Wonder Woman had stunning art work, really blew me away. The story is just setting things up at the moment but for the art alone I recommend this. Plus every one should read Wonder Woman, she is awesome.

Wonder Woman - Awesome

As a rule I hate all bat related stuff so I was wary of Batgirl but its written by Gail Simone who I like a lot. It seems like things could be head in a good direction and I'm happy to stick with it to see what Gail does.

Aquaman has also been seen as a huge joke in comics, a dumb character who no one cares about. That's pretty much why I picked up this comic. I've never read him before so wanted to see for myself. Geoff Johns turns up again writing this one and he really knocks it out the park. I like how he dealt with the previous image by having the criminals laugh at Aquaman only to see him take a bullet to the face with out blinking. This book totally turns around the character from the joke he once was. The art is also very good, I loved how his fish scale armour seemed to shimmer in every frame. Another must buy.

Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing is for me one of the best things comics have done. So I picked up the title eager to see what they have done. Once again very impressed with what they have done. The art and layout are very much in keeping with the style of previous Swamp Thing books and they do a very good job of keeping that "horror" vibe it always had. I'm having slight issues with the continuity but this is another that gets my seal of approval.

Suicide Squad is looking like a lot of fun, we need more comics with sharks in them. The Frankenstein book also looks like it might be worth sticking with. Alas the same can not be said for Birds of Pray which really did nothing for me at all. Was disappointed with Stormwatch, might pick it up as trade later but for now I'm dropping it.

This one panel is more than enough reason to pick up Suicide Squad

Still waiting for my copy of Animal Man to turn up as I was late ordering but once I saw the art work in it I decided I had to pick it up. It looks fantastic.

So out of the 52 I'm left with around 8 that I'd like to carry on reading. I know I've not tried everything so perhaps I've missed a gem which I need to get. And ignoring Green Lantern whom I'm loyal to regardless, there are 5 books which have greatly impressed me and got me excited about comics, well more excited than normal.

It might not sound much but its actually a pretty good hit rate for me, better than Marvel are doing anyway. Cheers DC.