There were a few football stories that caught my eye this week. Possibly the oddest one was comments by the English Premier chief executive Richard Scudamore who commented that Manchester United’s poor (by their standards) season was harming the league. "When your most popular club isn't doing as well, that costs you interest and audience in some places." Really? I am assuming that this is related to far eastern audiences who want to buy the shirt of their chosen brand and are guaranteed seeing them win every week. If they want to do that they would be far better served by the German Bundesliga at the moment – or the Scottish league for that matter.
I think the problem with the likes of Scudamore is that they are too concerned with selling branded products and forget that they are actually marketing an entertainment industry. If I watch football I primarily want to be entertained and the English Premier League has been anything but for quite a few years – I can recall watching a Liverpool vs Chelsea game a few years back where the main action on the pitch was the grass growing. However, they do seem to be picking up and it is notable that there are currently two teams, Manchester City and Liverpool, who stand a very good chance of ending the season with over 100 league goals. I think you would have to look back to the pre-war period to find teams that are that prolific.
Also, for what it’s worth, the games I’ve seen Manchester United playing in have at least been entertaining. David Moyes may have inherited the league champions but he also inherited a painfully aging squad. They are going to have to rebuild and that may take a few seasons but actually watching young players develop is far more rewarding than simply winning at all cost each week. I’m just wondering if he is going to be given the chance to rebuild the squad. There was a pretty shameful incident yesterday whereby some “fans” with too much money and clearly too much time on their hands few a plane with an anti-Moyes banner on it. I have to say I do have admiration for the real fans inside Old Trafford who booed the plane. I expect the plastic followers who are making all the noise will switch to following Manchester City, Liverpool or Bayern Munich next season.
At the moment I am looking forward to the World Cup but I am desperately hoping that it will be a brighter affair than the last one. In a way, I prefer internationals compared to club football because, despite some shenanigans with passports, the team selection can only be made on the basis of place of birth rather than which oligarch has been playing FIFA 2014 with real football clubs. I was intrigued this week to see that UEFA are proposing a “League of Nations” competition to run alongside European and World Cup qualification matches. What interests me in this is that the teams are likely to be reasonably well matched and unlike the current friendly matches there is something to play for. This isn’t due to start until 2018 and there appears to be opposition from the usual anti-Platini quarters but I can really see the benefit in this one.
Having just looked at the English league table, Liverpool are top and both they and Manchester City can win the league if they win all the rest of their matches. Chelsea must also be in with a shot although balancing this with European matches will be tricky. Regardless of this, of the 9 matches played so far this weekend, 5 have produced 4 or more goals. This doesn’t seem to be the exception any more either. For entertainments sake I would far rather be watching these games in the coming weeks than whatever is happening at Bayern Munich or Celtic. The only odd thing is most of these games arrear to be scheduled for a Sunday.
Sunday 30 March 2014
Sunday 23 March 2014
Fake Parts
I’ve fitted new wiper blades to our Toyota today. The old ones were getting to be beyond the realm of useless with them smearing across the screen and making visibility barely better than the rain they were meant to be removing. The replacement ones I’ve gone for are the new style Bosch Aero wipers which are fitted to the Golf. They are now produced with a retro fitting for older windscreen wipers and so far they are working perfectly – a clean swipe across the screen leaving it crystal clear.
The odd thing was that I had fitted standard style Bosch wipers to the car previously. I have preferred these wipers for years – Bosch aren’t the cheapest parts manufacturer in the world but they I think they are worth the extra for the way they perform. I’m not a great one for designer labels but these genuinely appear to be better than cheaper rivals and for a safety item like wiper blades that is a premium worth paying. So why were the Bosch wipers I’d had fitted for the previous year performing so badly?
I bought the previous wipers online from a seemingly reputable retailer. The wipers arrived in what appeared to be genuine Bosch packaging and the blades themselves had the Bosch logo etched on them. However, I am beginning to wonder whether they were fakes. I bought the new wipers from Halfords and they are significantly more expensive than online rivals. This is understandable to a point as they have a large chain of shops to maintain compared to an online only retailer with their cheap central warehouse. However, I am wondering if part of the cost saving of some online retailers is that they aren’t selling Bosch products at all.
One thing I noticed with the wipers from Halfords is that they were very well packed. As well as the cardboard they were also enclosed in rather an excessive amount of plastic. The online ones came floating about in the cardboard package without the extra protection. The problem I have is that I have no way of telling what is fake or not. And this isn’t like the £10 Rolex watch from the bloke down the pub where both customer and bootlegger are in on the joke. I am paying good money to buy genuine products because I want the guaranteed performance of the item.
I had a look around online and there does seem to be a website for reporting fake products but this is of little use to me. I have no way of knowing whether products are real or fake and websites like this don’t offer any real clues on how to spot fake products – other than to use the old adage of "if it seem too good to be true, it probably is." Ultimately, it shouldn’t be down to the likes of me to report fake products. The manufacturers know who they are selling to and it would be easy enough for them to keep an accredited list of genuine retailers. As it is they have a few listed but these all tend to be specialist garages or motor factors. I have no desire to buy pirated goods but I think the manufactures should be meeting us half way.
The odd thing was that I had fitted standard style Bosch wipers to the car previously. I have preferred these wipers for years – Bosch aren’t the cheapest parts manufacturer in the world but they I think they are worth the extra for the way they perform. I’m not a great one for designer labels but these genuinely appear to be better than cheaper rivals and for a safety item like wiper blades that is a premium worth paying. So why were the Bosch wipers I’d had fitted for the previous year performing so badly?
I bought the previous wipers online from a seemingly reputable retailer. The wipers arrived in what appeared to be genuine Bosch packaging and the blades themselves had the Bosch logo etched on them. However, I am beginning to wonder whether they were fakes. I bought the new wipers from Halfords and they are significantly more expensive than online rivals. This is understandable to a point as they have a large chain of shops to maintain compared to an online only retailer with their cheap central warehouse. However, I am wondering if part of the cost saving of some online retailers is that they aren’t selling Bosch products at all.
One thing I noticed with the wipers from Halfords is that they were very well packed. As well as the cardboard they were also enclosed in rather an excessive amount of plastic. The online ones came floating about in the cardboard package without the extra protection. The problem I have is that I have no way of telling what is fake or not. And this isn’t like the £10 Rolex watch from the bloke down the pub where both customer and bootlegger are in on the joke. I am paying good money to buy genuine products because I want the guaranteed performance of the item.
I had a look around online and there does seem to be a website for reporting fake products but this is of little use to me. I have no way of knowing whether products are real or fake and websites like this don’t offer any real clues on how to spot fake products – other than to use the old adage of "if it seem too good to be true, it probably is." Ultimately, it shouldn’t be down to the likes of me to report fake products. The manufacturers know who they are selling to and it would be easy enough for them to keep an accredited list of genuine retailers. As it is they have a few listed but these all tend to be specialist garages or motor factors. I have no desire to buy pirated goods but I think the manufactures should be meeting us half way.
Sunday 16 March 2014
LOVEDFiLM
I received an email a couple of weeks ago informing me that there were some “exciting upgrades and changes to your LOVEFiLM service”. I hate it when I get emails worded like this because it usually translates to “we are altering our terms and conditions and you are about to get shafted”. In fact the main change I could see is that they were renaming LOVEFiLM to the corporately monocultured “Amazon Prime Instant Video” and also bizarrely combining their film streaming service with their fast parcel delivery service. The latter appears to have made many people who used this rather irate.
Although I have used the video streaming service I use the LOVEFiLM DVD rental service far more. In fact the service still remains – buried deep into Amazon’s labyrinthine menu system. The reason for this is quite simple. There are far more disks available for rental than there are decent films to stream and it is the more obscure items that I really get the benefit from whether this is renting ancient foreign language films, DVDs of Doctor Who episodes from the 60s and 70s or more recent DVD collections of shows that have been on pay TV services but that have not really justified a subscription in themselves.
Prior to LOVEFiLM renting a film involved a trip to our local DVD rental shop. Our local independent still exists although most of the major chains have disappeared with an outmoded business model. From a customer perspective it seems like a world away – walking (or even driving) down to the shop and browsing around looking for the gem amongst the endless Z-rated schlock or simply hoping that they had enough copies of the latest blockbuster to make the trip worthwhile. More often enough it would be a case of weighing up two films that no-one had ever heard of and taking the punt that Brian Dennehy made a decent film every third movie. In a way this added to the entertainment because no-one knew exactly what film we would end up with and every so often we would end up with the “big” film everyone wanted to see.
Rental by post firms like LOVEFiLM seemed to spell the end for the rental chain but part of the attraction is the same. The rental lists are all things that we want to see but there is no telling as to what is actually going to arrive. However, the cost is much cheaper than the chain. Whereas our local rental shop used to do films for £3 per night or deals like 2 films for 2 nights for £5, LOVEFiLM do a subscription that effectively works out at 8 disks per month for £10. That’s pretty good value and with the choice being several tens of thousands rather than a few hundred there is a lot to choose from. However, with the latest announcement, I think the writing is on the wall for the DVD rental service. LOVEFiLM also used to rent video games but this service was stopped last year and whereas there were a myriad of DVD by post firms a few years ago, now there only appears to be one other – Cinema Paridiso. I suspect it is only a matter of time until Amazon kill off LOVEFiLM for good.
So what is the alternative. The streaming services can be very good but the limiting factor at the moment is choice. They may advertise thousands of films but in reality most of these are junk and even the quality of some of the things we do want to watch are questionable. I tried to watch the classic 1920s German Sci-Fi “Metropolis” on Amazon’s streaming service a few weeks ago but had to give up as the quality of the print was abysmal - it looked more like a poorly realised pirate copy then a digitally re-mastered masterpiece. What Amazon do appear to be doing is making more content available to rent for a fee rather than included in the subscription and this is something that I would possibly go for – so long as I didn’t have to pay for a subscription as well. In fact this would move the service closer back to the model of the grubby video rental shop but without the worry about what would be in stock that day – and presumably avoiding two out of every three Brian Dennehy films.
Although I have used the video streaming service I use the LOVEFiLM DVD rental service far more. In fact the service still remains – buried deep into Amazon’s labyrinthine menu system. The reason for this is quite simple. There are far more disks available for rental than there are decent films to stream and it is the more obscure items that I really get the benefit from whether this is renting ancient foreign language films, DVDs of Doctor Who episodes from the 60s and 70s or more recent DVD collections of shows that have been on pay TV services but that have not really justified a subscription in themselves.
Prior to LOVEFiLM renting a film involved a trip to our local DVD rental shop. Our local independent still exists although most of the major chains have disappeared with an outmoded business model. From a customer perspective it seems like a world away – walking (or even driving) down to the shop and browsing around looking for the gem amongst the endless Z-rated schlock or simply hoping that they had enough copies of the latest blockbuster to make the trip worthwhile. More often enough it would be a case of weighing up two films that no-one had ever heard of and taking the punt that Brian Dennehy made a decent film every third movie. In a way this added to the entertainment because no-one knew exactly what film we would end up with and every so often we would end up with the “big” film everyone wanted to see.
Rental by post firms like LOVEFiLM seemed to spell the end for the rental chain but part of the attraction is the same. The rental lists are all things that we want to see but there is no telling as to what is actually going to arrive. However, the cost is much cheaper than the chain. Whereas our local rental shop used to do films for £3 per night or deals like 2 films for 2 nights for £5, LOVEFiLM do a subscription that effectively works out at 8 disks per month for £10. That’s pretty good value and with the choice being several tens of thousands rather than a few hundred there is a lot to choose from. However, with the latest announcement, I think the writing is on the wall for the DVD rental service. LOVEFiLM also used to rent video games but this service was stopped last year and whereas there were a myriad of DVD by post firms a few years ago, now there only appears to be one other – Cinema Paridiso. I suspect it is only a matter of time until Amazon kill off LOVEFiLM for good.
So what is the alternative. The streaming services can be very good but the limiting factor at the moment is choice. They may advertise thousands of films but in reality most of these are junk and even the quality of some of the things we do want to watch are questionable. I tried to watch the classic 1920s German Sci-Fi “Metropolis” on Amazon’s streaming service a few weeks ago but had to give up as the quality of the print was abysmal - it looked more like a poorly realised pirate copy then a digitally re-mastered masterpiece. What Amazon do appear to be doing is making more content available to rent for a fee rather than included in the subscription and this is something that I would possibly go for – so long as I didn’t have to pay for a subscription as well. In fact this would move the service closer back to the model of the grubby video rental shop but without the worry about what would be in stock that day – and presumably avoiding two out of every three Brian Dennehy films.
Sunday 9 March 2014
Elementary
With Windows XP going out of support at the end of the month I decided to update my desktop and install Windows 8.1 around a month ago. I had intended to use the old desktop as a play server for installing Linux. I finally managed to get around to that this weekend.
I had considered a few versions of Linux. I already had Ubuntu as a duel boot but I had rather lost interest in it a while ago. It seemed slow and unnecessarily unwieldy and I was rather put off by some changes to the interface. I had toyed with the idea of Linux Mint for a while but one of my colleagues suggested Elementary OS so I decided to give it a go.
One thing I did have to consider first is that many of the components of the system had been reused in the new desktop but searching around various boxes of junk I managed to uncover a PS2 keyboard, a rollerball mouse, a DVD drive and various cables. That just left a monitor. I had considered asking around on Freegle to see if anyone had one going but as I wanted to use this in my main bedroom I wondered if I could use the TV. This has various inputs but unfortunately not a VGA connection. It does, however have a spare HDMI socket in the side so I bought a cheap videocard which would support this.
Installing the operating system is easy. The ISO file can be downloaded and burned to CD or DVD (it will fit on either) and it can then be booted as a trial without altering anything on the hard disk. It takes a while to come up but I immediately loved what I saw - a simple X-Windows screen which was just like the one I had to abandon in the mid 1990s when my employers inflicted something called Windows 3.11 on me. Being happy enough with this I elected to do a full install. I did choose to repartition the drive so that the operating system and /home went on different locations - this makes it easier if re-installation is required at a later date.
For a Linux install I would say this was very easy. After the initial install I applied the updates and updated the graphics card drivers. I then installed Firefox and Adobe Flash (to make iPlayer work) and I had to download the printer drivers from Canon. This posed a bit of an issue as I couldn't make out how to run the install through the user interface but there is a virtual VT220 terminal hidden away in the application s which gives the familiar Unix command line - I really am a luddite to the end.
In terms of performance, this is really quite impressive. Boot-up time is 30 seconds (remember this is 10 year old hardware) and movement between the applications is smooth and consistent - something sadly lacking in Windows 8.1. I didn't manage to find a driver for my scanner although this won't work in Windows either - I think it is just too old to get any support.
The other basic applications include an email client, music and movie player, instant messenger (which I haven't tried) and photo viewer. There are also many applications available for install in the Software Centre. For someone who wants to move away from XP and doesn't have the hardware to cope with later Windows versions this may be just the ticket. It's not quite as simple as the latest Windows to install but I'd actually say it was easier than XP.
The only fly in the ointment is I'm now rather annoyed that I paid Microsoft for a new operating system as this would do 90% of what I want for a voluntary payment of $10 (well worth paying). I'm not one for having a go at Microsoft - they have their place - but for a desktop operating system I'm wondering whether the likes of Elementary OS are the future?
I had considered a few versions of Linux. I already had Ubuntu as a duel boot but I had rather lost interest in it a while ago. It seemed slow and unnecessarily unwieldy and I was rather put off by some changes to the interface. I had toyed with the idea of Linux Mint for a while but one of my colleagues suggested Elementary OS so I decided to give it a go.
One thing I did have to consider first is that many of the components of the system had been reused in the new desktop but searching around various boxes of junk I managed to uncover a PS2 keyboard, a rollerball mouse, a DVD drive and various cables. That just left a monitor. I had considered asking around on Freegle to see if anyone had one going but as I wanted to use this in my main bedroom I wondered if I could use the TV. This has various inputs but unfortunately not a VGA connection. It does, however have a spare HDMI socket in the side so I bought a cheap videocard which would support this.
Installing the operating system is easy. The ISO file can be downloaded and burned to CD or DVD (it will fit on either) and it can then be booted as a trial without altering anything on the hard disk. It takes a while to come up but I immediately loved what I saw - a simple X-Windows screen which was just like the one I had to abandon in the mid 1990s when my employers inflicted something called Windows 3.11 on me. Being happy enough with this I elected to do a full install. I did choose to repartition the drive so that the operating system and /home went on different locations - this makes it easier if re-installation is required at a later date.
For a Linux install I would say this was very easy. After the initial install I applied the updates and updated the graphics card drivers. I then installed Firefox and Adobe Flash (to make iPlayer work) and I had to download the printer drivers from Canon. This posed a bit of an issue as I couldn't make out how to run the install through the user interface but there is a virtual VT220 terminal hidden away in the application s which gives the familiar Unix command line - I really am a luddite to the end.
In terms of performance, this is really quite impressive. Boot-up time is 30 seconds (remember this is 10 year old hardware) and movement between the applications is smooth and consistent - something sadly lacking in Windows 8.1. I didn't manage to find a driver for my scanner although this won't work in Windows either - I think it is just too old to get any support.
The other basic applications include an email client, music and movie player, instant messenger (which I haven't tried) and photo viewer. There are also many applications available for install in the Software Centre. For someone who wants to move away from XP and doesn't have the hardware to cope with later Windows versions this may be just the ticket. It's not quite as simple as the latest Windows to install but I'd actually say it was easier than XP.
The only fly in the ointment is I'm now rather annoyed that I paid Microsoft for a new operating system as this would do 90% of what I want for a voluntary payment of $10 (well worth paying). I'm not one for having a go at Microsoft - they have their place - but for a desktop operating system I'm wondering whether the likes of Elementary OS are the future?
Sunday 2 March 2014
The Tenth Circle of Hell
Dante’s Inferno described a decent into the circles of Hell in which he passed from Limbo through Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and finally to the lowest level of Treachery where the incumbents were trapped in ice for all eternity. Of course, in the Devine Comedy he didn’t dare to tread into the tenth circle of Hell: Children’s Parties.
My daughter had her sixth birthday party yesterday and I am hoping that it is the last. We have been through this with all three children now and even hosted our own party for Raymond when he was four. This was the only time we have ever put on a children’s party in our own house and anyone who has ever done this will never make the same mistake twice. In fact the party did go OK and the children that we invited seemed to quite enjoy themselves (well, much more than our cats did). Raymond himself seemed to be rather quiet on the day which seemed odd as he had been looking forward to it. We discovered why that evening when he came down with Chicken Pox and we had to phone up all the other children’s parents to tell them that they may have got more than they bargained for in their goody bags.
Since then, we have tried to use organised party facilities which have the advantage that someone else does all the organisation and at the end of the day one can relax at home without having to remove lipstick from the windows or household pets from the lavatory. For Sophia we chose a local pub which has a play area at the back and that arranges parties for less money than we could do ourselves. We just have to send out the invites and bring along a birthday cake. So what could possibly go wrong? Part of the package for these children’s parties is the inclusive Goody Bag which typically contains a few small items: plastic toys and games, maybe a balloon and so on. Unfortunately, the pub we had booked supplied a vuvuzela – the weapon of mass destruction from the last World Cup finals. When we arrived there were approximately 38,000 children blowing these things in unison. I can’t imagine who thought that this would have been a good idea – either someone who doesn’t have children of their own or hates those that do.
After the previous party’s guests were removed by their anxious and horrified parents Sophia’s party actually went quite well. Her classmates seemed like a nice bunch of kids and they were easily amused either chasing around the play area or playing with the bag of balloons which we had brought along from ASDA. At least they were happy until some big kids from another party thought it would be a wheeze to burst all the balloons. The party lunch of low quality fast food and ice cream went well as did the birthday cake. We seemed to survive the two hours and sent the children off with their goody bags. I did assure the parents that the vuvuzelas would sound better if exposed to extreme heat – I just hope they realise that they were not of my planning. Then again Jake once came home with a hand-grenade in his goody bag so anything is possible.
My daughter had her sixth birthday party yesterday and I am hoping that it is the last. We have been through this with all three children now and even hosted our own party for Raymond when he was four. This was the only time we have ever put on a children’s party in our own house and anyone who has ever done this will never make the same mistake twice. In fact the party did go OK and the children that we invited seemed to quite enjoy themselves (well, much more than our cats did). Raymond himself seemed to be rather quiet on the day which seemed odd as he had been looking forward to it. We discovered why that evening when he came down with Chicken Pox and we had to phone up all the other children’s parents to tell them that they may have got more than they bargained for in their goody bags.
Since then, we have tried to use organised party facilities which have the advantage that someone else does all the organisation and at the end of the day one can relax at home without having to remove lipstick from the windows or household pets from the lavatory. For Sophia we chose a local pub which has a play area at the back and that arranges parties for less money than we could do ourselves. We just have to send out the invites and bring along a birthday cake. So what could possibly go wrong? Part of the package for these children’s parties is the inclusive Goody Bag which typically contains a few small items: plastic toys and games, maybe a balloon and so on. Unfortunately, the pub we had booked supplied a vuvuzela – the weapon of mass destruction from the last World Cup finals. When we arrived there were approximately 38,000 children blowing these things in unison. I can’t imagine who thought that this would have been a good idea – either someone who doesn’t have children of their own or hates those that do.
After the previous party’s guests were removed by their anxious and horrified parents Sophia’s party actually went quite well. Her classmates seemed like a nice bunch of kids and they were easily amused either chasing around the play area or playing with the bag of balloons which we had brought along from ASDA. At least they were happy until some big kids from another party thought it would be a wheeze to burst all the balloons. The party lunch of low quality fast food and ice cream went well as did the birthday cake. We seemed to survive the two hours and sent the children off with their goody bags. I did assure the parents that the vuvuzelas would sound better if exposed to extreme heat – I just hope they realise that they were not of my planning. Then again Jake once came home with a hand-grenade in his goody bag so anything is possible.
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