That Bloke In The Big Smoke

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London.
No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life;
for there is in London all that life can afford."
~ Samuel Johnson ~

On Thursday morning I fly to DC, drawing to a close over nine years in the UK. It seems fitting for such an occasion to delve into the memory bank and recollect how things have changed since I first moved here on a sunny May morning in 2007...

• Tony Blair was still PM, Ming Campbell was Lib Dem leader and Ken Livingstone Mayor of London.
• A woman had yet to serve as Britain's Home Secretary.
• It was legal to smoke in pubs.
• £1 was worth nearly $2.
• Kate and Wills had just broken up.
• Waterloo Station was still the Eurostar terminus.
• Free newspapers thelondonpaper and London Lite were still in production and you had to pay for The Evening Standard.
• Steve McClaren was England's football manager and the national team had yet to play at the new Wembley.
• Portsmouth FC, now in the fourth tier, had just finished 9th in the Premier League.
• Mourinho was Abramovich's only managerial appointment.
• There was no equal prize money at Wimbledon between men and women.
• The Digital Switchover had yet to begin.
• Britain's Got Talent, Outnumbered, Would I Lie To You & Only Connect hadn't aired; Parkinson & Grange Hill were still on.
• The iPhone hadn't been released yet.
• Spain hadn't won a football World Cup or European Championships since 1964.
• Pep Guardiola had yet to manage Barcelona and therefore hadn't won any of his 15 major trophies to date.
• Djokovic had not won a Grand Slam yet, Nadal just 3 and there was only one British appearance in a final since 1977.
• Myspace was the most popular social network, Twitter was just a year old (with fewer than 700,000 users) & Facebook had 20 million active users (it's now over a billion).
• Justin Bieber hadn't been 'discovered' yet, Lady Gaga hadn't released her first album and Taylor Swift was still unheard of despite having released her first album.
• Jennifer Lawrence had not acted in a film yet.
• And finally, a little-known African American senator from Illinois had just announced his candidacy to the US presidency.

I hope I return to Blighty 21 months from now. I'm sure the time will fly. But my life has not quite gone according to plan until now, so who knows what the future holds. What I do know is that my lifelong love affair with The Great Wen and all things British will never diminish. So long Great Britain and its great people, thank you for all the wonderful memories.

Signing out for the last time on this side of the pond (for now), this is That Bloke in the Big Smoke.

After 29 league games last season, Leicester City had just 19 points and marked nearly four months at the bottom of the Premier League table. If a new season had started immediately after that and included this season's matches, they would have 66 points from 31 matches. To put it in some perspective, this is a list of EPL teams since 1995/96* with the most points after 31 matches. The team in () was the eventual league champion, when different from the leader after 31 matches:

2014/15 - Chelsea            - 73 pts
2013/14 - Chelsea            - 69 pts (Manchester City)
2012/13 - Manchester United  - 77 pts
2011/12 - Manchester United  - 76 pts (Manchester City)
2010/11 - Manchester United  - 66 pts
2009/10 - Manchester United  - 69 pts (Chelsea)
2008/09 - Manchester United  - 71 pts
2007/08 - Manchester United  - 73 pts
2006/07 - Manchester United  - 78 pts
2005/06 - Chelsea            - 78 pts
2004/05 - Chelsea            - 80 pts
2003/04 - Arsenal            - 77 pts
2002/03 - Arsenal            - 66 pts (Manchester United)
2001/02 - Manchester United  - 64 pts (Arsenal)
2000/01 - Manchester United  - 70 pts
1999/00 - Manchester United  - 70 pts
1998/99 - Manchester United  - 64 pts
1997/98 - Arsenal            - 63 pts
1996/97 - Manchester United  - 63 pts
1995/96 - Manchester United**- 64 pts

** Newcastle United also had 64 pts

It's been a wee while since I made an entry about O Joga Bonito, but this season's English Premier League has earned it. I can't remember the last time when we were so far into a season (Gameweek 21 out of 38) and a team like Leicester City were still contending for the title. However unlikely it may still seem, the neutral in me wants them to go all the way. It would certainly surpass any achievement since the Premier League began (1992/93) and possibly eclipse the achievements of both Leeds United in 1991/92 and Aston Villa in 1980/81, because of their existing pedigree in English football. Of course, Blackburn Rovers won the title in 1994/95 under Dalglish, but they also had pedigree and their triumph was aided in no small part by owner Jack Walker's millions - the prescient precursor to the business model's successful replication by Chelsea and then Manchester City. No, we'd have to go back to Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest - a fellow Midlands club - in 1977/78 to find the most recent equivalent accomplishment. Back then, The Reds won the league title immediately following promotion from the old Division Two - an extremely rare achievement in itself - and they remain the only club in Europe to have won more European Cups than league titles (2-to-1). I suppose even if The Foxes don't conquer the summit of English football, they'd take a place in the top four and entry into next season's Champions League. Even that would be an outstandingly incredible achievement. Goodness knows how excruciatingly frustrating it's been as a Liverpool fan aiming to achieve just that in the past half a dozen seasons. As another famous Scot might muse: Football, bloody hell!<sup>1

1</sup> Bill Shankly quoted in the subject, Sir Alex Ferguson in the entry.

A major study by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) has found that black students are more than 3-times less likely to be awarded a 1st-class university degree than white students. Can somebody please hide its contents from Nick Griffin and his ilk!

Britain's oldest cinema, the 100-year-old Phoenix in North London is getting a £1 million makeover and will reopen in September.

Sticking with London, the UK-based chain Selfridges has been named the world's best department store, fighting off competition from NYC's Bloomingdales and Hong Kong's Lane Crawford, by the International Group of Department Stores and the International Association of Department Stores. Less known is that it was founded by a Wisconsin-born American-magnate unimpressed with British stores in 1909!

Sources close to Inayat Bunglawala, the founder and chair of Muslims4UK (a group to celebrate the UK's democratic traditions and promote active Muslim engagement), tell him that the Home Office is considering issuing two exclusion orders; one against Jamaican-born Muslim preacher Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips and the other against Mumbai-based Zakir Naik. Bunglawala argues that if we really care about freedom of speech, we should let these Muslim speakers in and let the law take its course. He includes a good quote from a spokesman for Nick Clegg from a couple years ago over the controversial proposed visit of Qatar-based Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi:

"Many of Yusuf al-Qaradawi's views are repugnant; the job of a truly liberal society is to defeat such abhorrent ideas by arguing forcefully and persuasively against them. Giving al-Qaradawi the publicity that a ban would create would ultimately serve only to legitimise his views in the eyes of extremists. If he is allowed into this country he is of course subject to our laws; and if he were to break the law in any way including inciting or glorifying terrorism he should obviously be prosecuted."

I couldn't have put it better myself. I hope the Lib Dems put their foot down on this issue and ensure the two men are not excluded.

Meanwhile viewing figures from both sides of the Atlantic during last weekend's World Cup fixture between England and USA appear fairly similar. 17 million people watched the game in American homes, more than the number who watched the first four games of the NBA Finals! It's all the more impressive given that the NBA viewing figures itself were up on previous years. Game 5 of the NBA Finals drew in an audience of 18.2 million. And though we don't know what the total viewing figures were because of those who watched it in pubs and bars, it's worth pointing out that over 100 million Americans watched this year's Super Bowl. Closer to home, it appears a similar number of people watched it on the telly. There was a maximum of nearly 20 million as full-time approached, but the real talking point was felt by the 1.5 million watching it on HD, who missed Gerrard's goal as ITV broke into an ad-break. Plebs like myself who were watching it on Freeview were not affected. ITVs coverage of the World Cup has generally been poor and this major blunder has not won them any friends. And from what I gather about their coverage of Formula One events in the past, this isn't entirely surprising either! Thank goodness for the BBC!!

Finally, Jeffrey Archer has been approached by Bollywood producers intent on making blockbusters of his short stories. Not a rupee more...

Group A
Uruguay
France
South Africa
Mexico

Group B
Argentina
South Korea
Nigeria
Greece

Group C
England
USA
Slovenia
Algeria

Group D
Germany
Serbia
Australia
Ghana

Group E
Netherlands
Denmark
Japan
Cameroon

Group F
Italy
Paraguay
Slovakia
New Zealand

Group G
Brazil
Ivory Coast
Portugal
North Korea

Group H
Spain
Switzerland
Chile
Honduras

Round of 16
A1 v B2: Uruguay v South Korea: Uruguay
C1 v D2: England v Serbia: England

E1 v F2: Netherlands v Paraguay: Netherlands
G1 v H2: Brazil v Switzerland: Brazil

A2 v B1: France v Argentina: Argentina
C2 v D1: USA v Germany: Germany

E2 v F1: Denmark v Italy: Italy
G2 v H1: Ivory Coast v Spain: Spain

Quarters
Uruguay v England: England
Brazil v Netherlands: Netherlands
Argentina v Germany: Germany
Italy v Spain: Spain

Semis
England v Netherlands: England
Germany v Spain: Germany

3rd Place
Netherlands v Spain: Spain

Final
England v Germany: England

Savour the moment. It's not often you'll catch me singing praises of a Red Devil but what can I say? It's World Cup O'Clock. A time when club loyalties are set-aside as national passions take centre-stage. And boy, do I want my England to bring the trophy home. But we won't. Not without Paul Scholes to pull the strings in midfield. With Barry missing the first game due to injury, Carrick out-of-form and Hargreaves not even in the squad (and rightly so), we really could've done with Scholes services. He maybe 35 and he may have played his last game for England in 2004, but few could argue with his stellar form this season. Phenomenal to say the least. He would've been the perfect foil to Lampard in central midfield, marshalling the troops, with Gerrard either playing off Rooney or in an upfield left position. Unstoppable, I say!

But why isn't he in South Africa? Because Capello called on him too late. Granted it was in May, but still. It's the fuckin' World Cup. Even Carra said yes, so why not you Scholes? The mind boggles. Cunt. England will not win the World Cup and it's all Scholes fault. Oh well, I suppose it was asking too much of me to set aside club loyalties, World Cup notwithstanding. At least Gerrard will be captain. And we all know what that did to his Liverpool confidence. Hopefully he can finally translate it onto the grandest stage of all. It's now or never mate.

COME ON YOU THREE LIONS!!!

Jack Hobbs scored 100 first-class hundreds after he turned 40! I say, that does put the Little Master's achievement in perspective. Nite!