Luke Lucan
http://20six.co.uk/lukespacelucan
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LIVE EARTH
Well its been ages but Al Gore's "concert for a green Diana" at Wimbledon today has driven me to blow the dust of my blog and see if I can annoy anybody as much as I did by slagging off James Blunt.
My problem with the movement is that they want me to save the world by changing to using those curly whirly light bulbs that give out no light and are full of mercury so when we throw them away we are poisoning the earth with heavy metals. They must stop this pious, uneducated hypocrisy.
If the world was serious about the issue the UN would be in the rainforests preventing the greedy bastards from destroying them so they can plant oil palm trees or grow cows for beefburger production.
The west wouldn't be arselicking arabs and russians to secure the oil supply but would have built plenty of nuclear power stations with zero emmisions.
The problem is only going to solved by good science and engineering being driven through by politicians but you can bet your carbon footprints that the politicians will screw things up.
The greens are not engineers and their leaders don't give give two hoots about a threatened species of owl as long as they can hang on to their jobs and viewpoints.
Lets hope Al Gore et al (haha) can really show some leadership and drag the recalcitrant interest groups into some kind of shape. Lets hope that we see some kind of concrete proposals put forward for discussion fast and lets hope these proposals do not include conscience salving bad science like the light bulbs and inefficient windmills.
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Blog Disruption
It's a bit of a nark, many/most/all of my carefully crafted images have disapeared from my blog since the new software was visited upon us. And I used to be able to tell from the statistics if robots or spideers had visited,
None ever had but that's not the point.
Why fix it worse than before?
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Sven-Goran Eriksson's England Legacy
When Sven-Goran Eriksson joined England as National Team Coach in January 2001 there was a lot of moaning from the old school about appointing a foreigner to the post and now we have been dumped out of the world cup lots of people are bemoaning his tactics.
But remember who preceded him. Kevin Keegan, Glen Hoddle, Terry Venables and Graham Taylor. I ask you, turnips to a man, well perhaps not Venables.
There have been 11 managers since the FA used to "manage" the team as a committee. I exclude, from the list Peter Taylor, who was caretaker for one match only and Howard Wilkinson who was in charge for one match only twice (if you see what I mean).
We have to go back 1990 when Bobby Robson was ending his eight years as boss to find a decent tactician. BUT if you look at the statistics Sven was our second most successful manager ever a shade behind Alf Ramsey and Bobby Robson is actually worse than average. Keegan, Sven's immediate predecessor is the worst ever England manager. This is calculated on proportion of points won out of those available.
Coach/Manager Pts%
Ramsey 73.01
Eriksson 72.73
Venables 71.74
Hoddle 71.43
Greenwood 70.91
FA 69.20
Winterbottom 67.99
Robson 65.26
Taylor 64.47
Mercer 64.29
Revie 62.07
Keegan 58.33
The above table is based on 2 points awarded for a win and the order changes slightly if we use 3 points for a win but Eriksson is still second.
Coach/Manager Pts%
Ramsey 69.03
Eriksson 68.69
Hoddle 67.86
Greenwood 67.27
FA 66.52
Winterbottom 64.03
Venables 63.77
Robson 60.00
Taylor 58.77
Revie 57.47
Mercer 57.14
Keegan 51.85
So the coach picks only two fit strikers to take to the world cup and one of them he had never seen play a match (even at the end of the campaign). It cannot be very difficult to be second best England manager ever. The others must have been truly awful!
So what do statistics tell us, perhaps not a lot.
What else has Eriksson left as a legacy for English football.
When he started, at the brave dawn of a new millennium I remember talk of psychologists and positive thinking. In fact I remember more than talk, there seemed to be endless TV programmes where Becks and co. were being trained by white coated psychotherapists and sports pschologists. What happened to all that business? And how did out talisman blow a gasket and self-destruct soon to be followed by Lampard and Gerard bottling thier penalties. Good mind control...not!
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There's something odd about this song
"Hips Don't Lie" by the Shakira assisted by some cloned rapper who is probably famous. This is supposed to be the most played song on the radio ever, according to Shak's website.
Ladies up in here tonight (up what or up for what? Grrrrr)
No fightin', no fightin' (is this relevant)
We got the refugees up in here (This might be some reference to Shakira's Columbian background buut who knows?)
I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish (if he's from Barcelona)
Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa (This can be translated in two ways either, there is a llama in a coma and it is so enourmous that it is in both your house amd my house) (or they call you pretty so lets shag, your place or mine)
Shakira, Shakira
Oh baby when you talk like that
You make a woman go mad (now I know what's wrong with my chat up lines)
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body
I'm on tonight
You know my hips don't lie (now I'm boerd)
And I'm starting to feel it's right
All the attraction, the tension
Don't you see baby, this is perfection
Hey Girl, I can see your body movin'
And it's driving me crazy
And I didn't have the slightest idea
Until I saw you dancin'
And when you walk up on the dance floor
Nobody cannot ignore the way you move your body, girl
And everything so unexpected - the way you right and left it
So you can keep on shaking it
I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa
Shakira, Shakira
Oh baby when you talk like that
You make a woman go mad
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body
And I'm on tonight
You know my hips don't lie
And I am starting to feel you boy
Come on lets go, real slow
Don't you see baby asi es perfecto
Oh I won't deny my hips don't lie
And I am starting to feel it's right
All the attraction, the tension
Don't you see baby, this is perfection
Shakira, Shakira
Oh boy, I can see your body moving
Half animal, half man
I don't, don't really know what I'm doing
But you seem to have a plan
My will and self restraint
Have come to fail now, fail now
See, I am doing what I can, but I can't so you know
That's a bit too hard to explain
Baila en la calle de noche
Baila en la calle del dia
Baila en la calle de noche
Baila en la calle del dia
I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa
Shakira, Shakira
Oh baby when you talk like that
You know you got me hypnotized
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body
Seņorita, feel the conga, let me see you move like you come from Colombia
Mira en Barranquilla se baila asi, say it!
Mira en Barranquilla se baila asi
Yeah
She's so sexy every man's fantasy a refugee like me back with the Fugees from a 3rd world country
I go back like when 'pac carried crates for Humpty Humpty
I need a whole club dizzy
Why the CIA wanna watch us? [Shakira/Wyclef Jean]
Colombians and Haitians
I ain't guilty, it's a musical transaction
No more do we snatch ropes
Refugees run the seas 'cause we own our own boats
I'm on tonight, my hips don't lie
And I'm starting to feel you boy
Come on let's go, real slow
Baby, like this is perfecto
Oh, you know I won't deny and my hips don't lie
And I am starting to feel it's right
The attraction, the tension
Baby, like this is perfection
No fightin'
No fightin'
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Floating over the Valley of the Kings
They are currently running an advert on BBC World for holidays in Egypt. It featurs a balloon trip over the Valley of the Kings. This brought it all back, my nightmare balloon ride over the beautiful sights of ancient Egypt last easter.
I was on a Nile cruise and one of the extras was the ballooning trip. We had to get up at 4 a.m. to leave the boat and travel to the balloon field. You don't want to be in the Egyptian sun any time near midday so they fly early.
On the tele it looks romantic; sailing silently above the sand with your beloved who is wearing an backless evening gown and quaffing champagne from a crystal glass.
In reality it was very different we were stuffed into the basket with strangers and, as you know, strangers are always weirdos. There were a couple of Swedes with Malcolm Glazer beards (those ones that go round the edge of the face like a goatee in negative). There was an drunken seventy year old woman, a young couple with a terrified kid who cried the whole way through the trip and there was a misanthrope with a fear of heights, oh that was me.
Everything went smoothly at first and the views were spectacular but eventually I noticed beads of sweat break out on the brow of the pilot as he fiddled with the gas tanks, tapped the gauges and eyed the power lines that we were rapidly approaching. The wind was taking us toward a town and away from the monuments. All the other balloons were landing in the desert near a track that the recovery truck was following. We carried on being blown lazily by the wind toward disaster. With a whoosh, the flames shot higher into the balloon as the pilot opened the valve and we sailed over the power lines and further toward the town.
After a few more minutes of fiddling about and drifting toward the town our pilot decided to land, in a farmer's field. Now these people are poor and don't take kindly to a bunch of westeners destroying their crops.
There followed a period of angry jabbering as the pilot negotiated with the farmer. We were forbidden to get out of the basket as we had reached some kind of equilibrium with a partially deflated balloon balancing the weight of the basket and it's passengers.
After a few more minutes the recovery mob, sorry team, turned up and proceeded to tread more crops underfoot as they came to our rescue.
Four lads walked the balloon and basket out of the field toward a track but not the way they had come oh no the farmer insisted they go the other way. The problem with this was that we had to cross a two metre wide irrigation ditch. The ditch was two metres deep with half a metre of muddy water in it. Oh and we still had to stay put to keep the balloon in equilibrium.
 .
Three of the boys skipped across the canal either getting a bit wet or finding stepping stones but one of them decided to hitch a ride on the bottom of the basket. The increased weight meant that we immediatelly crashed down into the ditch. The leading edge of the basket hit the sloping wall of the ditch and the boy was trapped under the basket in the muddy water. He let go at the same time as the pilot gave a blast of gas so we shot up in the air. The others grabbed the ropes and the pilot vented the hot air and we came crashing down on the other side of the canal on a small mound. They vented the balloon and as soon as it was looking flacid enough I hopped out.
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