Tottenham Hotspur vs Leeds United

In a format rather heavily inspired (read ripped off) by football365* I thought I'd provide a few thoughts that came out of the weekend's FA cup fixture. I am an armchair spurs fan (too poor and not determined enough to fight for a ticket to games) but am trying to look at the game as neutrally as possible (mostly).

• For the first 20 minutes it seemed that the Leeds goal was haunted by the ghost of Boaz Myhill. Leeds keeper Casper Ankergren repelled shot after shot including a decidedly tame Jermain Defoe penalty. Despite this Leeds could hardly be called a one man team on the day.
  
  
• If anyone in a Leeds shirt did deserve that accolade, it was neither Ankergren nor the much lauded Jermaine Beckford, but Robert Snodgrass. He was as involved in combatting the Spurs midfield as he was in setting up many of Leeds attacks. Simon Grayson's allowing of Snodgrass to roam paid massive dividends for Leeds and set up classic 70 minutes of football.
  
  
• As alluded to earlier, Defoe's penalty in the early stages of the game was incredibly, pitifully tame. Beckford's spot-kick taken in the dying seconds of a fraught game, with the weight of Yorkshire on his shoulders, was an absolute masterclass.
  
  
• What exactly is the point of Jermaine Jenas? I read with amusement that Inter Milan are interested in his signature. After a dreadful display against Liverpool and a toothless and aimless 90 minutes against a league one side, Spurs fans may be having a whip-round to help Mourinho with the transfer fee.
  
  
• Of course the 'league one' statement in the point above is far more of a stick to beat Jenas with than Leeds. The Yorkshiremen looked at times like a top flight outfit, with an industry that has been severly lacking from other visitors to the Lane. Think Wigan for example.
  
  
• Saturday's game could have been a coming of age game for Gareth Bale. He was mostly dependable at the back, caused real trouble going forward and looked much like the stand-out player that joined Spurs during that diabolical spell at the start of last season. Of course one swallow does not a summer make, but there were hints of a far more mature and able Gareth Bale than has yet been seen in a Spurs shirt.
  
  
• You have to feel sorry for Roman Pavlyuchenko. It may be that he isn't working hard enough in training, it may that London life just isn't for him but his goal showed exactly what he is capable of. This is a player that has performed admirably on the sizable stage that is Euro 2008. Before completely running out of steam after what was effectively two back-to-back seasons, the Russian looked like he could be good for us. We may never know, and could regret it.
  
  
• How much to Tottenham miss Aaron Lennon? Without him the team lacks the width to really stretch defenses. Also missed was Tom Huddlestone who has been class all season, his intellegence on the ball and running from deep could see him maturing into a Frank Lampard style figure. Without him we are left playing Jenas, which means we may as well be playing with ten men.
  
  
• The real winners yesterday were the neutrals. As much as it is a cliche, Saturday's game showed all of the magic of the FA cup. On Wednesday February 3rd, there will be a replay at Elland Road and while neither manager may welcome the extra game, the fans are certain to be up for it, and the atmosphere is likely to be electric. Hopefully the match will be another classic.
  

*I won't provide a direct link as it's a Murdoch thing, consider it a *very* guilty pleasure. You can find the url easily enough if you think about it.

A ramble and a soundbite

So, I've kind of neglected this space of mine so far this year, but am determined to not give up. I like writing, but the problem is that I'm not the fastest at constructing my thoughts so need quite a lot of time to provide the sort of post I feel is sufficient.
As a result there may be a few more stream of consciousness posts on here in the near future as I try and train myself to take the time to document some of the things that are going through my mind. I'm sure my two followers have felt really let down by the lack of output!

Anyway there is a thought that has been flashing through my mind of late that I've managed to boil down to a handy phrase.

"Politics is the art of making a country look worse than it is, in order to gain a highly paid job. Or it's the art of making it look better than it is, in order to keep one"

You can quote me on that :)

Merry Christmas One and all

This Tuesday I visited the majestic Royal Albert Hall to partake in their classical Christmas concert. The event was a sell out, though the number of empty seats was a telling sign of the snow in the home counties. Obviously some had felt that the journey wouldn't be worth it!

The concert itself varied between being awesome and awful, with many of the rearrangements sounding a little bit like Disney reworkings of famous carols. The absolute highlight though was the Royal Philharmonic's interpretation of Tchaikovsky's famous nutcracker suite that played into the interval. Sensational :)

Having never been to the Albert Hall before it was amazing to be inside and see the grand interior, with two enormous Christmas trees to the sides of the stage. The acoustics are also fantastic, with even the quietest parts of the music coming to the very back of the nosebleeds (where I was seated) with astonishing clarity. Obviously not something I can recommend that you all attend, as it's already finished, but if you see a good classical concert advertised there I would urge you to sample it.

So it's now Christmas eve. I hope that all your shopping is done, your presents are wrapped, and you are chilled and ready for some quality time with your families. To put you in the festive mood, here is a gorgeous picture of a Christmas tree.

So Merry Christmas to you all. I hope to be back before the new year with some kind of arbitrary list. Be safe and have fun!

The known universe

This is breathtakingly, mindboggolingly beautiful.
The American Museum of Natural History take you on a journey to the outer edges of the known universe. If you fail to be staggered by this then you are simply unstaggerable.



This video has inspired me to do a short series of blogs based on this journey. I'm not sure if it should be a part of the basics of series or not. I shall see where my mind takes me.

The basics of: Algebra

I intended to start this piece with a definition, but than had a look online and found it needlessly verbose for those trying to understand the basics. There is a very simple way of thinking about algebra, and it is to simply do with letters what you would do with numbers.

This sounds patently absurd and I can imagine the cries

"But I know 2 + 2 = 4, what on earth could x + x equal?"

Of course the point is that you don't know what x equals in this case, indeed the use of x is completely arbitrary. The letters in algebra are simply substitutions for unknown quantities,and we do do the same thing with x.
As we don't know what x means, our job is to either simplify a mathematical statement so that should we ever find out what x means it is easier to deal with, or solve an equation that will tell us what x is.

Book review: Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

I'm going to save you the trouble of scrolling to the bottom of this review and urge you to buy this book. Go now, it's absolutely fantastic in every way and should be read by everyone. Once you've come back, you can read this review in full in anticipation of what to expect when you open it up. Done? Good.

Ben Goldacre is a doctor probably best known for his 'bad science' column in the guardian on a saturday. Due to the clash of names you would be forgiven for thinking that the book was just a collection of those columns. This is very much not the case. What Dr Goldacre instead attempts is to educate the reader about the scientific process, through examples of times when it's not followed.

What you experience as a result is a challenging, engrossing. shocking and depressing in equal measure. The delight and wonder that you find the placebo chapter is soon frittered away as you learn about frauds and quacks that have made untold millions. First it's humourous to see these characters cut down to size, then slowly the human cost is revealed. Goldacre's revelations about the AIDS crisis in South Africa left me feeling both angry and hurt.

It gets worse, not in quality but definitely in effect. The importance of science in the world is regularly overlooked and it's having your attention drawn to just how overlooked, and just how devastating the consequences can be is chilling. The books close only seeks to illustrate this with depressing effect.

Of course, while 'Bad Science' can often be depressing, it's for the content, rather than the quality or style of writing. Indeed Ben Goldacre is often highly witty, with some genuinely laugh-out-loud funny passages. This a book that seeks to entertain through information, and that it does with genuine aplomb. Most people that read this book will learn an awful lot, and occasionally it is necessary to re-read elements of the book to ensure that the point is got. This again is not a failing, like the wonderful 'Short history of nearly everything' by Bill Bryson, the scope is ambitious, squeezing a magnificent amount into just shy of 350 pages (not including references).

For those that won't find any new concepts, this book will still both shock and entertain and for everyone else, the challenge of learning is definitely worth it for the feeling of accomplishment you receive at the end. Absolutely necessary for anyone that cares about the world, medicine or science.

Should the treasury afford to give Tax breaks to the UK games industry?

Below is a little article I wrote as part of a job application to show off my writing ability (stop sniggering). I'm posting it here for its relevance to Tom Watson's column today on comment is free...

In 2008 the UK was the third largest games development territory in the world, with a turnover of £4.02bn. Ed Vaisey, Shadow minister for Culture has described the UK games industry as an "unsung success," which in the same year contributed £1bn to the Treasury and had an export balance of £100m. To such a positive background, it may seem surprising that two groups (TIGA and NESTA) currently are lobbying hard for assistance for UK based developers in the form of tax breaks.

Surprising, that is, until you look at more recent numbers. 44 UK based development studios have gone out of business in the last 12 months, there has been an 8% fall in the number of development staff, with a 5% fall in the size of the sector expected over each of the next 5 years. So why has the birthplace of Elite, Speedball 2, Tomb Raider, Driver and GTA suddenly hit such rocky times? The main issue, and the one that the question hopes to resolve, is international competition.

Currently Canada, France, a number of US states and other nations in the world provide tax breaks for their video games sectors. This enables games to be produced more cheaply in those territories and more importantly for studios to offer far better terms to their developers. Stories abound of top developers being poached (particularly to Canada) with the offer of a large increase in salary as well as very generous relocation packages. With this backdrop it is easy to imagine why it is so hard for our own studios to retain top staff.

It is of course all well and good banging on about tax breaks, but the UK is currently in recession. The government surely cannot just throw money around to anyone who comes to the door with a begging bowl. The question that has to be asked to any industry that wants a handout is will it be sustainable? In this regard TIGA have quite promising answers to the question based on the results of the similar policies that have launched in France and Canada. Ubisoft have grown their French development team by 20% since the introduction of a 'cultural tax break' to that amount and over in Canada reports suggest that the revenues gained from the growth of the industry have paid for themselves twice over. Gareth Edmonson, vice-chairman of TIGA is equally positive about projections for the impact on the UK industry stating that "Over five years the tax measure would cost £192 million but would deliver £415 million in tax receipts."

So why the resistance? Well a primary and very simple reason is the ingrained ignorance of UK politicians towards the games industry. The current culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw manages to at least mention Video Gaming in a statement on the recent 'Digital Britain report,' but only to state "we will also implement a new, more robust system of content classification for the video games industry... ensuring protection of children now and in the future." This stunning oversight only helps to perpetuate the myth that videogames culture has nothing useful to contribute.

Politics quite simply hasn't caught up. The video games industry is often compared to film when it comes to classification and the desperate rush to protect the young. Where the comparision isn't often made by those with the power to make a difference is the enhancement in culture and skills that both provide. Much is made of the fact that science and mathematics is shrinking in the UK, yet support for an industry in which these skills are highly valuable is being allowed to shrink astonishingly rapidly.

So to the future and how likely it is for attitudes to change. Thankfully TIGA have already done a great job in promoting the industry for more than just it's negative headlines. MP's should be invited into games studios to look at just what goes into developing a game. They should be shown both the talent that is widespread in the UK but also the rate at which it is venturing overseas. There are very few industries in the UK where the balance of exports is positive and with a little political will that balance could grow.

So to return to the question of whether the treasury should offer the UK games industry tax relief. As far as I can tell, it can little afford not to.