Betting

A while ago I was asked by a friend why anyone would want to buy a football club. Their argument was something of the lines that: there is no way they will make any money back, and at best will just loose some of their cash and not a lot, why would anyone do this? I was dismayed at the lack of logic applied to the concept – if there is anyone who has, in the current climate, bought a football club to make money, then more fool them, as not only is that unlikely, it’s probably impossible. The reason for this are pretty obvious, namely being the amount of money involved in being in a club offset at where you get your income from are never going to equate, nor tip, in the direction that you want it to.

And thinking of a football club as a business is a bad idea too. Just because they “make” money and then “spend” it, that does not a business make. They are more akin to a motion picture, or a band – football is entertainment more than anything these days, almost played out like the aging WWE (formally known as the WWF to my generation). The way to think about owning a football club is the same as thinking about owning a computer games console.

You spent £250+ on the console because you wanted to play the computer games, and then every so often you have to buy a computer game. It’s an extra outlay that makes you happy and fulfils the basic purchase. This is the same as football clubs, as the owner should be of a comparative wealth. For example, the £250 for a games console represents a percentage of my salary that I am willing to give up and this is the same as the owner of a football club. You spend that money to gain enjoyment back from it and that is where the value should come from. You don’t expect to make any money from the console and the games; indeed to think that possible would be ridiculous. And as such, this is the same with owners of football clubs.

Another way of looking at it is like betting. If you are like me, you go out to loose money when you go to the casino, or when you play poker. You set it up in your mind so that you have already spent the money when you start playing, so that if you do win it back, you not only feel better about it, it balances out. You will never enjoy a game of black jack, texas holdem, nor a game of roulette if you expect to earn any money back because the odds are stacked against you. If they weren’t, then the casino wouldn’t exactly be a good business now would it?

Wasps (or proof that if there is a God, he’s a bit of a dickhead)

When I was younger I was a bit of a scamp. I would spend endless hours out on my bike, trailing all over the local area, sometimes breaking my parents rules about not going up to the High Park, or heading over the hill and further afield, like into Rouken Glen and beyond. One of my favourite youth highlights comes from the first time I took to the open road on my bike and more than probably hit over 30mph careering down an incline towards a red traffic light.

I would also hang about the burn at the bottom of my street, jumping over the polluted stream, hanging out on Trolley Island, and when the new Our Lady of the Mission extension was built, playing a lot in the tunnels that were built to take the burns away from the new school foundations. Climbing onto the roofs of schools and into abandoned garden nurseries, I was always out and about. These facts my parents probably did know, but I pretended that they didn’t.

I have no fears of heights – climbing trees was a given. I had no fears of dark places – clambering up into an attic, or into someone basement were no problem. I had no real fear of animals either – dogs and foxes abundant in this urban area… but what I was very much scared of is Wasps.

These terrorising bastards of the insect world, the absolute C. U. N. T. of all evolutionary creation is the only thing in existence that I regularly come into contact with that genuinely scares me. I don’t mind spiders, flies are only annoying, and even Bumble Bees have a rather cute, furry, honey loving feeling about them, almost as if they are on our side.

Wasp? Nope. Utter pricks they are. The reasons for my hatred are mostly routed in the summer of 1995 when I was stung several times. Obviously, not because I was tasty target, but because… well, I was being a dick with them. They used to hang over the bins in the playground, so as a game myself and some friends would try to catch them. This was a recipe for disaster, and I was stung twice inside two days. This proved to many that I wasn’t allergic to the stings, as I hadn’t died.

What it had also proved to the many sceptics was that there was a fear building. These events were the foundations for the start of respect for the creature, which slowly has turned into hatred, and now into fear and contempt. I don’t like the buggers, hate the sight of them, and squeal like a little girl about to be spit roasted by the Jonas Brothers when I see one. And not in a good way.

And if you ever need proof that God, if he is around, is a twat look at the Wasp. I mean… come on.

Albums.

Just for a laugh, I did the new version of the Wikipedia Albums and came out with some cool answers.

Firstly Wikipedia:Random is used to get my band name. After two vetos (against the rules, but there is no way I am having "Graham Stilwell" or "Synchronised swimming at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships – Solo technical routine" as my band name) I happened upon Maximum Power Principle which is much more manageable. And actually, not that bad a name either.

Secondly, I use Quotations Page:Random to give me my album titles.

Lastly, I used Flickr to give me random images for my three album covers. Et Voila:

My debut album, Shake Hands With A Clenched Fist

The tricky second album, Even Suspecting the Sincerity of the Pessimists

And our final album, The Inner Fire.

Which is a fantastic album and band name.

Sky.

When I look at the internal combustion engine in a car, I don’t know what most of it does. I understand the principles involved, and I can kind of understand the logic behind the way that machine makes my car move forward, and even could maybe identify various parts of the machine, but honestly I just take it for granted. It’s an evolved machine from a basic premise to a brilliant invention that self propellant and makes my car go forward and back when I tell it to and that’s as much as I need to know.

The reason that my knowledge only needs to extend to there is that the car is able to be maintained by a garage and men, who have livelihoods built on fixing things that I can’t understand when they go wrong. It’s part of the trust given when handing it over to them that they don’t make up problems to fix them, when I honestly couldn’t argue with them that they weren’t needed. This is what is supposed to happen to a well oiled machine – we take their word for it because it rarely needs to looked at, and when it does they fix it.

So when trying to get Sky installed, I expected it to be a piece of cake. I thought it would be partly easy, but with maybe a problem or two, but not come grinding to a halt because someone, somewhere, is useless. We called Sky to get it installed and signed up and that went by with only a minor hiccough, but finally a date was set and they were to come out and put the cable from our communal dish on the roof into our flat, connecting into the TV via wires. Now, I understand this part. It’s just a connection on the dish (which is already in position) and then taking this new cable into the flat.

Being a top floor flat this will require a ladder. I’ve seen people on the roof; indeed I’ve even heard people on the roof. So it can’t be that hard. I mean, I’ve climbed to the top of Aerator towers that were taller, hanging off the side of a 100ft oil platform, so these guys better have a good reason for not being able to get to the roof.

Their reason was “WE DON’T HAVE A BIG ENOUGH LADDER” to which my response would’ve been “That’s not my problem, buddy.”

So now we are having to look at getting someone else to come out and install the Sky box, even when

A – we have the viewing card already
B – there is already a dish on the roof
C – we are connecting to a company and we are having to connect to them
D – we are not qualified to do it

Argh, Sky.

Maps

The above is a map created by Beauchamping, and is entitled States United, and is quite an amazing piece of clever art, by in the right scale the states of the Americas have been modified into a big love heart, with the pointy part of Texas marking the prominent bottom extremity of the heart.

It’s a wonderful art work and makes me sad that the same couldn’t be done with Scotland, nor with Britain as our make up is slightly more orthodox, rather than that of the States. I look at the Americas with slightly envious eyes of the experiment and what it means to be part of the experiment. This thought is countered by the trade off that our history eclipses the North American history of the United States by hundreds of years and our heritage is rightly envied by most countries of our stature elsewhere.

It also reminds me that our world is remarkably small and young in real terms. We are so different, with such vast gulfs in appearance, culture and language, yet we all came from the same place, and indeed the same people who survived are us all.

This map however, is a stunning redraw of London’s destinations, from how long it takes to get there. Cleverly showing the disparity between Scotland’s connection to it’s capital elect, and the continental (and American) cities.

My favourite map (you don’t have a favourite map?) is this one however – it reminds me how our perspective is skewed by what we are brought up with.

Inspired by Strange Maps

Numbers and Letters

When ever it starts raining the sound of the rain drumming on the roof of my flat, which is the top floor, makes me remember camping and the pitter patter of the rain on the tent. It evokes memories that are a hidden away, rarely if ever called to find and probably would be assumed to be lost if it weren’t for this rather random, and picky, plucking of them from the recesses of my brain. The memory I posses isn’t the best – I regularly forget what I am even doing that day, or what I have to pay, who I have to call, or where I am supposed to be, but mostly it’s the dates and relative time that has passed for various events that confuddle my memory.

So, it was with startling shock last night I walked into my room and, with the smell of an air freshener and a rattle of rain on the bedroom window, I was transported quickly and sharply into the past of last Christmas and the sudden feeling that the end of the year was approaching. It of course isn’t but the combination of smell and sound made my other senses reach for the last time they all felt that and the moment was a revelation, almost making me worried that I hadn’t got Christmas presents, that I didn’t know what I was doing for new years, it was a strange moment and for a few seconds my memory was swamped with these recollections.

To snap myself out of it, I drank my green tea. This is a new smell that will obviously remind me of these current times and my thoughts at present. In the future I will drink up a cranberry juice, eat a chocolate brownie and maybe listen to the latest Yeah Yeah Yeahs album again and be transported to the summer of 2009.

The same happens when ever I read a certain book or a do a certain calculation. It might sound crazy to the untrained eye, but every time I use the Universal Gas Constant, 8.314 J/Kmol (Joules, a unit of energy, the pressure-volume product, and per Kelvin per mol) I am reminded of a certain lecturer’s moment in the sun, when we were once in the classroom and he introduced us to this wildly accurate concept – in the background a loud noise exclaimed from the street below and he, rightly, suggested that every time we heard the Universal Gas Constant, we would be reminded of this moment. A rather clever lecturer I think.

And when I sit down to read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I am reminded of my 3rd year of University. When ever I read any of the 87th Precinct I am happily reminded of my father and I pulling apart the details – I can probably remember the plot to any novel in the series, with the exception of a few. The warmth that I gain from nestling inside a book or film or game or an album that I know inside out, that I have picked apart piece by piece and reassembled so often that I might be able to receipt it by heart, is comfort of the highest degree, and the intrinsic memories these moments conjure and ones that I fear I’ll loose otherwise.

Barriers

I was posed an interesting thought whilst offshore. Upon climbing several flights of stairs up about 150ft of platform to the roof of the Production side, my cohort turned to me and asked me if I had used the barrier that runs the length of the stair case. The answer was yes – but then he made a very interesting point. We could’ve totally walked up and down these stairs without even looking at the barrier, never once setting our hands down on the barrier. It helped us not on iota on our climbs up and down the stairs – in fact, we could easliy do it without even thinking that the barrier was there.

So, why does suddenly then the thought of doing without the barrier fill me with such dread? The imagining of the suddenly vanished barrier made go slightly weak, and as I walked right to the edge of the walkway, looking 100ft into the blue and sparkly water, but not touching the barrier, I realised that without it there I would be no where near the edge. The inherent safety offered by the barrier being there, even without using it, is enough for me to forego all fears of falling off. The irony is that without using it, it might as well not be there.

It makes me think of other self imposed barriers I see in my way that I use subconsciously.