Beer and Football

What is it about armchair football fandom and the drinking of copious amounts of beer? It seems to be an automatic reflex at the prospect of some televised sporting action: do you want a four pack with that? I could vaguely understand it with something like cricket which is likely to go on for the best part of 5 days and include long periods of not very much happening (just tune in to Test Match Special for the craic). In fact, if actually going to the match alcohol is generally forbidden so it is far more likely that one would acquire a cup of Bovril, a scotch pie and pneumonia. Anyway, yesterday featured the Scottish Cup final, the FA Cup final and the DFB-Pokal final in quick succession so suitable amounts of Scottish, English and German beers were acquired.

The Scottish final kicked off promptly at 15:00 although I nearly missed the beginning. I had planned to take the dogs out for a walk prior to the commencement of the sporting events and associated alcoholism. Unfortunately, the dogs decided to take a quick walk around the Carron Dam nature reserve as an opportunity to “bugger off”. Sam showed up as soon as he had finished off a discarded hamburger but Eddie appeared to have disappeared into thin air and as he is as deaf as a post it is rather difficult to get his attention again. As it was, a ginger haired lad on a bike managed to find him and he appeared to have gone bog snorkelling (Eddie, that is, not the ginger haired boy who I could not thank enough.) Anyway, we managed to get back to the house with 5 minutes to spare and cracked open the first bottle of the day.

I had been looking forward to this match the most as it featured our local professional team, Falkirk, against Inverness Caledonian Thistle who had finally made it from the Highland league through to a convincing third place in the Premiership and a place in the Hampden final. Falkirk finished 5th in a surprisingly strong second tier but the smart money would have to go with the Highlanders. For the first half, this looked to be going to form as they went in at half time with a 1-0 lead. However, Falkirk dominated a second half that saw them equalise and push for a winner only to be caught on the break with 5 minutes to go. In a way it is heart-breaking but the game was a great advert for Scottish football and a boost for the game in the Highlands. Falkirk last won the cup in 1957 (before I was born) and I have seen them as beaten finalist three times since. Apparently, I am a jinx.

The FA Cup final kicked off in the early evening and I moved on to the English beers which always seem to come with peculiar names like Bishop’s Finger or Hob Goblin (although I had shied away from a Scottish beer with the charming description of “Skull Splitter”). Anyway, the FA Cup final was between Arsenal and Aston Villa (or, as the Prime Minister calls them, West Ham). I quite enjoy watching Arsenal but in the good tradition of supporting the underdog I thought I would back Aston Villa. In fact, just like Falkirk, Villa had not won the cup since 1957 so I could see the symmetry there. And in good symmetrical fashion, Villa duly lost although, unlike the spirited performance of Falkirk, the were completely played off the field by the Londoners. Villa haven’t had the best of seasons, finishing just above the relegation zone whereas Arsenal finished a comfortable third. However, one would be forgiven in thinking this was a pro-am tournament rather than a match between two teams in the same division.

I rather messed up the times for the German final which was kicking off at 20:00. It did but this was Berlin time rather than BST. This was Jürgen Klopp’s last game in charge at Dortmund. The game was against Wolfsburg, onetime Volkswagen works team and this year’s Bundesliga runner-up. It looked promising for Klopp’s send-off with a goal for Dortmund after 5 minutes. After 38 minutes they were 3-1 down and this remained for the remainder of the match – unlike my pilsner, which rapidly disappeared. So fairy tales don’t always come true (although, like Inverness, this was a first cup win for Wolfsburg). I did notice, however, that I appeared to be missing a bottle of beer and a whippet. Interestingly, both turned up together.

Quintinshill Centenary

I attended the memorial service for the centenary of the Quintinshill Rail Disaster at Larbert Station on Thursday evening. Quintinshill was by far the worst rail disaster in British history but had become somewhat forgotten in the mists of time. In fact, I knew about it originally as one of our local councillors, Billy Buchanan (a keen local historian), arranged some years ago to have a plaque installed at Larbert Station.

 The disaster involved mainly Royal Scots soldiers who were travelling from Larbert to Liverpool en route to the battle at Gallipoli. A series of mistakes by signalmen in the Scottish borders caused three trains to collide in the early hours of 22nd May 1915. The gas lighting on the troop carriages ensured that the deaths and injuries in the ensuing fire were both extensive and horrific. I’ve actually made the train journey between Larbert and Liverpool on many occasions and given that my grandfather fought and was wounded at Gallipoli the disaster has always had a certain resonance with me.

The service in the car park involved a parade from a local church and a formal remembrance service at the station. Although this was a civil disaster the loss of life of 226 and a further 246 injuries were predominantly amongst the Royal Scots.

The disaster has now fallen from living memory – as has much of the First World War. However, I think it is important that events like these should make the journey from living memory to living history and this service, although solemn, is a positive step in that direction. Given the vast improvement in rail safety over the years, Quintinshill is likely to remain Britain’s worst ever rail disaster.

A Season of Smart Heating

Last October I mentioned that I had been fitting programmable radiator valves to my central heating system to try to reduce my astronomical gas bill. Generally, these have worked quite well although the noise of the motors in one child’s bedroom was too disturbing so I have had to revert to a manual TRV. Other than that they have been an improvement as it makes it much easier to accurately turn the temperature up and down. The only other issue I have had has been in the last few weeks: once the AA batteries go flat the radiator defaults to an “on” setting. Fortunately, replacing the batteries is very easy.

I’ve kept monthly records of my gas and electric usage since moving in to the house so I have been able to plot out how much I have been using in the November through to April period which covers the heaviest heating use. This week, I received the energy bill covering the last of the Winter months so I have been able to assess how effective or otherwise they have been. The good news is that the gas usage per day has gone down compared to previous years as you can see on this graph (although it should be borne in mind that the radiator valves were only fully operational from the end of October):

The year refers to when January falls. On the face of it, it would appear that the gas use has gone down year on year. However, it is worth bearing in mind that we did get some extra roof insulation added in the summer of 2012 so it isn’t an exact comparison and, of course, the biggest variable factor is the weather. I have been told that a ballpark figure for switching the central heating down by 1 degree is a 10% reduction. That may be optimistic but the flipside is that a 1 degree reduction in the outside temperature will result in a 10% increase in heating requirements. To try and work out how much of an effect this would have I have managed to get average minimum temperature figures for Eastern Scotland from the Met Office:

It seems to indicate that this past Winter was, for the most part, more severe than the previous year but not quite as severe as 2013 (although that was more a case of a very cold early spring). The other thing that is difficult to assess is what the house occupancy has been like and the number of times the heating has been on in the daytime due to various people suffering from colds or flu this year will skew things.

So what has been the total effect of fitting the valves. Well, my gas use has been the lowest over the last year since we moved in and this translates to a 17% reduction on the previous year and a 29% reduction on 2012/13 (with its cold spring). Averaging out I’d say that would be something like a 23% reduction in gas use which is not at all bad and easily covers the cost of the radiator valves. Of course this is no substitution for proper external wall insulation but given that is neither cheap nor easy on a solid walled house it is a fairly quick win.

Game Of Thrones

Around a month ago, I mentioned that I was looking at renting TV series boxed sets from LoveFilm (or LoveFilm By Post as their Lords and Masters, Amazon, call now them.) Well, I’ve given it a go and the first set was Games Of Thrones. We’ve already watched the first series and are currently on the second (although the second is courtesy of a friend of ours rather than LoveFilm). I did have some reservations about this but I have to say that I’m completely hooked.

The reservations I did have were about the sex and violence in the series and I have to say that it earns its 18 certificate. In a way, this is a pity as it is the sort of thing that our 13 year old son would enjoy (he is a big fan of Tolkien) but the nudity and gory deaths don’t make it entirely suitable for him: not that I think he would be particularly bothered by that - it’s just not the sort of thing I can imagine a 13 year old wanting to sit down to watch with Mum and Dad. In fairness the nudity and sex scenes do seem to be integral to the plot and I’m sure that where it is called for, and entirely necessary for the dramatic content of the story, the actresses would be willing to keep their kit on for an entire episode.

I haven’t read A Song Of Fire And Ice on which the series is based (Game Of Thrones is actually just the first book of the series) so I was worried that the large number of characters and their complex relationships would be confusing. In fairness, I have had to read through the accompanying sleeve notes on a few occasions but the portrayal on screen does explain the plot and characterisations quite well. One advantage for me not having read the books is that I don’t know what is coming next although I was forewarned by our friend not to get too attached to the characters. This is good advice as there have been several occasions where a character actor that we really like appears on screen only for them to exit stage left in the next episode in a particularly gruesome manner.

One other interesting thing is that I am now starting to get lots of cultural references that had previously passed me by. Back when there were only three TV channels most people would have a fair idea of cultural tropes even if they hadn’t seen the original reference: whether this was the Fortsyte Saga, Upstairs Downstairs, Doctor Who or Bill And Ben. Now with literally hundreds of channels, many of which will not be available to the entire population, some cultural references can become obscured or reserved to small cliques of fans. This week has been quite interesting with the General Election coverage as I have been able to spot Game Of Thrones references in Charlie Brooker’s show, on some news reports and various social media quotations.

The worrying thing is that our political system now represents Game Of Thrones at all. I suppose it will make Prime Minister’s Question Time more interesting what with the random beheadings and full frontal nudity…

The Invisible Election

Next Thursday is the General Election in Britain but you would hardly know it to look around locally. In the past, elections in Falkirk have tended to be rather colourful affairs with party banners up on the lampposts and a variety of prospective candidates campaigning on the streets. However, aside from a couple of small SNP and Labour posters up in people’s windows and a couple of advertising hoardings I’ve seen very little. Yesterday, I had to go to Falkirk to visit a mobile phone shop and expected the High Street to be mobbed. Initially I thought there was a major (and belated) showing from the Green Party as there were swathes of cheery looking individuals dressed in green and white but it turned out to be Hibernian fans making their way back to the train station after an early kick off. The High Street was bereft of campaigners and actually rather quiet in general.

Aside from a single mailing from each of the candidates and an SNP marquee in Stenhousemuir shopping centre on a Saturday morning there has been little interest. I suspect that many people have election fatigue with last year’s independence referendum having seemingly dragged on for decades and there is a certain backlash against the Westminster parties treating the Scottish electorate as some sort of leper colony. This appears to have been reflected in the opinion polls with the SNP having benefitted from an upturn in grass-roots interest in politics along with a significant number of former supporters of the other parties having switched allegiance – or at least those SNP supporters that normally support the Labour or Liberal parties in UK elections are not voting tactically this time.

One thing that does interest me with the elections are the opinion polls; not so much for any political content but in that it appeals to my nerdish tendencies and allows one to play around with the statistics. As far as I can see with the UK figures there has been little change in the parties support since the beginning of the year and it looks like being almost a dead heat between Labour and Conservative. The Conservatives will do well in South East England and Labour well in the North, as ever. Where there could be a change is that Labour look set to do very well in Greater London whereas they are doing appallingly in Scotland.

I had expected Labour to recover some of their Scottish vote; it has crept up slowly over the last few months but nothing like as fast as it should have done. I calculated a poll-of-polls for Scotland out of all the opinion polls published in the last week (based on 3668 respondents) and the figures come out as:

SNP 47.8%
Labour 25.4%
Conservative 15.8%
Lib Dem 7.2%
Green 1.6%
UKIP 2.0%

That could be a massive landslide for the SNP with possibly a couple of exceptions where there are popular local MPs (in the Northern Isles, for example). I’m interested to see how that pans out in the real poll next Thursday. Whether we know who the new prime minister is this time next week is another matter. I suspect the next government will be a minority one which means that the next PM will have to stop trying to piss off Scottish people.