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.

In my excitement to evaluate Leicester City's potential achievement, I forgot to mention a couple other aspects of this season's Premier League that has equally confounded expectations and added to the merriment. The first is the almost mirror-like collapse by defending champions Chelsea and the other is the welcome return of unpredictable results for practically every match, including the ones involving the usual top teams (though perhaps excluding Aston Villa). Long may it continue!

...I arrived in London to settle here permanently. The photos below were taken on the night and subsequent morning of that memorable journey. It was my first flight to Blighty in three years - and I only stayed a night on that occasion - so this was actually my first proper visit in nearly four years. I was over the moon, making childhood dreams come true and all that jazz.


With mum at check-in in Muscat (then Seeb) International Airport. Dad had a separate flight that night to attend a conference in Italy. I think my sis was still in India. You can see bits of my Liverpool jersey that I was wearing in honour of the Champions League Final that was taking place as we were flying towards the Continent. The Mighty Reds were taking on The Rossoneri (AC Milan) in Athens. The pilot was kind enough to give us two score updates along the way. Unfortunately, we lost 2-1.

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Earlier today I tweeted about a unique solution the Turkish Football Federation had applied to punish Fenerbahçe for a pitch invasion during a pre-season friendly. Instead of the usual alternative of playing matches behind closed doors in front of an empty stadium, they decided to bar men altogether and open up the gates free of charge to only women, and children below the age of 12. And guess what? 41,000 women and children filled the stadium to capacity for the Istanbul-based club's Super Liga match against Manisaspor. The match ended 1-1. In future I'd like all football associations to apply the same punishment. It's great to see a stadium full of passionate female football fans, even if it sounded a bit like a Bieber concert.

I became aware of this a few years ago but most people still think it is. I was reminded of it while watching the latest edition of the newly-instituted, web-only Match of the Day 3 programme on Monday mornings, which featured as its guest the British-based American goalkeeper, Brad Friedel. Neither he nor Lee Dixon (a regular analyst and former England international) were aware of soccer's true origins. Therefore I reckon it's important to spread the word across the length and breadth of this country and beyond. Many Britons (and I've noticed it's not just those who follow the sport!) are quick to dismiss any use of the term soccer as an Americanism, as though it were a dirty word. But as Wikipedia amply demonstrates, this misnomer couldn't be further from the truth. Soccer is well and truly British. In fact it was widely used by the mainstream media until at least the 1970s, but quite what happened after that is somewhat of a mystery. Although interestingly enough, according to the Hansard archives, the use of the term soccer by MPs has increased in recent decades (even as football remains the most popular term in Parliament, the media and certainly amongst the hoi polloi)!

EDIT: It's worth pointing out that according to Hansard, the earliest mention of football in Parliament was in 1824, while the earliest mention of soccer (and rugger) was in 1927.

(Note: Even if you don't like MotD or football in general, that programme is worth watching alone for what is possibly the "best" own goal ever scored... by who else but Lee Dixon himself!)

They are the funniest I've ever come across. No country as a whole has a better set of creatively titled teams.

27 de Mayo (27 May)
31 de Octubre (31 October)
Alemán (Germany)
Always Ready
Bolivar (formerly known as Atletico Bolívar Literario Musical or Athletic Bolivar Literary Musical)
Atlético Ciclón (Athletic Cyclone)
Club Social, Cultural y Deportivo Blooming (Club Social, Cultural & Sporting Blooming)
Deportivo Ferroviario (Rail Sports)
Destroyers
Estudiantes del Oriente (Students of the East)
Jorge Wilstermann (a Bolivian aviator)
Fraternidad Tigres (Tiger Brotherhood)
Regatas Flamenco (Flamenco Racing)
Santos de Belén (Bethlehem Saints)
The Strongest

Click here for a full list on Wikipedia.

Last night I watched what was probably the game of the season and surprisingly, it didn't involve either Real Madrid, Barcelona or both, even though they were also in action together. It's not easy picking one game out of half a dozen humdingers, Arsenal featuring in at least three of them. But last night was special because I watched it in a pub packed with fans from both sides not far from where the game was actually played. And it was a study of contrasts, as one side went into the ascendency followed immediately by the other. The game ebbed and flowed until Spurs came back from a two-goal deficit to secure a draw against the mighty Arsenal. A bad result for both teams but perhaps more damaging for Arsenal as they seek to end their six-year silverware drought. There's a better chance Spurs will qualify for next season's European Cup. And most hope they do.

Meanwhile, Liverpool remain rooted to sixth which will probably deny them any European football next season for the first time since 1999/00. That's thanks to Birmingham City winning the League Cup and only one of the top five clubs making the final of the FA Cup. However there is an outside chance we could sneak through to the Europa League, if Manchester City win the FA Cup but get pipped to fourth place in the league by Spurs and we finish sixth. That would be harsh on Stoke City who have qualified for their first ever FA Cup Final in their 148 year-old history. And if we don't watch out, the Blue Shite are just 2 points behind us. COME ON YOU REDS!

In the other half of the table, the bottom eight clubs are separated by a mere six points. There may only be five or six games left this season, but it's all to play for! A fitting finale to an exciting Premier League campaign!

Earlier today Mohamed Bin Hammam (of Qatar) confirmed he would be challenging incumbent FIFA president Sepp Blatter at the scheduled upcoming presidency election on 1 June. He made the announcement in Kuala Lumpur where he was attending the 4th Asian Football Confederation Conference on Science and Football Medicine. As it happens my dad is also attending the conference and just before Bin Hammam made official his bid for the presidency, he delivered a speech at the conference. Dad was quite impressed with the chap's polished performance. The previous conference was held in Oman in 2005 which my dad helped organise, while the first two editions were held in Japan and Malaysia. Dad enjoys these conferences because of the practical application of the issues considered. For instance in 2005 they discussed the effect of fasting during the month of Ramadan on players and the use of MRIs to determine the real age of players before tournaments. This year he took particular interest in the presentation by a large delegation of Swiss and Kiwi sports medicine specialists from a well-known orthopaedic hospital in Qatar on the effect of playing football in an extreme environment. Given that Qatar will be hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup during the summer when temperatures will regularly exceed 45°C (113°F), it is worth noting that the specialists suggested matches could be called off once temperatures exceeded 33 or 34 degrees itself. Which means one of two things. Either the climate-controlled stadiums HAVE to be developed or the World Cup has to be moved to the winter. There is no alternative. Fills you up with hope, doesn't it? The other interesting presentation was on the contribution of medical science to the development of straight red card offences in football such as the tackle from behind in 1998 and the elbow in the face in 2007. Tomorrow he will be attending an interesting session on stem cell research in football medicine. Other events include hands-on clinical workshops on genetic applications, muscle/cartilage tissue repair, the continuing issue of "age doping" and the role of Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Injection Therapy*.

Surprisingly, this is my dad's first visit to Malaysia since our family trip in 1989! I say that because he has travelled extensively in the region, particularly to Thailand and Hong Kong. The only countries he hasn't visited in the region are Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. However he's loving being back in Malaysia, with its rich mix of the local Bahasa people and culture, ancient Sanskrit influences, Tamils, Chinese and moderate Islam. He liked the fact that he could easily buy booze in a local market, even though it's a Muslim-majority nation. The food? Exquisite. And unlike Sri Lanka, their Tamils speak the way we do in India. Malaysia, truly Asia indeed.

(* Platelet Rich Plasma also known as PRP is a new field in Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine, using your own blood (Autologous) for healing muscle, tendon and ligament injury.)