(in a personal capacity)

The I-Pad and Star Wars

unionblue — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:45:21 +0000

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away…check here for the I-Pad briefing Steve Jobs never gave.

Wavering about the I-Pad. On the one hand its thin, lovely, shiny and I want one. On the other, do I really need what is basically an Ipod-Touch on steroids? Question is a bit pressing, as I am currently without an Ipod-Touch thanks to a sticky combination of a long car journey, sick child and Orangina. Thoughts welcome!

Why I fell out of love with Barca

unionblue — Sat, 22 May 2010 18:26:12 +0000

Everton FC have always been the football love of my life, but ever since my late teens I’ve had a poco bit on the side with Barcelona.

The reasons for this are many and various but include an over-romanticised relationship with the city that formed the backdrop to ‘Homage to Catalonia’; a brief but innocent holiday romance over 20 years ago which for a short period convinced me I’d be happy to abandon Merseyside for the slightly more obvious charms of Las Ramblas; the link with Gary Lineker before he sold his soul to Walkers Crisps and Match of the Day pundrity; and last, but not least, the allure of the club itself – prouder and seemingly more principled than their counterparts in Serie A or much of the Premier League.
So it’s with a bit of regret that I found myself nodding in agreement with much of Barney Ronay’s article in the Guardian today. Messi et al may constitute one of the best teams to ever grace the Nou Camp, but I can’t help yearning for the more flawed genius of Stoichkov and De la Pena. The unremitting rise of both the Champions League and the Primera Liga has left me – and I suspect many others – cold; this is football for TV, not football with real passion. Getting the odd glimpse of Barca on the telly, supplemented by the sheer joy of seeing them take to the pitch for real ( albeit against Extremadura), beats the relentless exposure that the ‘big’ clubs in Europe now enjoy.
I appreciate that 38 may seem late in the day for to emerge from my football age of innocence, but emerge I have…

The morning after…

unionblue — Fri, 07 May 2010 07:24:16 +0000

Others more lucid and informed will be blogging about the national picture, but here in Wirral South, Alison McGovern held the seat for Labour despite the Conservative Candidate (previously Lib-Dem) working the seat for three years and bundles of Ashcroft money, manifested in billboards on what seemed every corner of the constituency. Little rays of sunshine and all that.

Election Day

unionblue — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:08:46 +0000

Morning – Polling station

Afternoon – Knocking up (oh, behave…)

This evening – More knocking up

Tonight – The Wire (I prefer waking up to my fate rather than watch it unfold excruciatingly before my eyes)

Tomorrow – Who knows?

X-box blues

unionblue — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:31:53 +0000

Is there a more disappointing bit of technology than the X-box 360? Its so bad that even Nick Clegg doesn’t bother with it.

I bought one for my kids a few weeks back, and I’m struggling to get over how badly designed it is. Turn it on and its the aural equivalent of a clapped out washing machine; playing it for more than a couple of hours at a time results in it switching itself off because its overheated (you can even buy a little add-on to cool the thing down, which it probably would have been useful for the designers to think about before they launched it); and on top of that its just pretty damn ugly…a horrible black box reminiscent of a bog-standard work PC that come second in a fist fight. If the X-box was a person it’d be a teenager (or lad in his 30′s who wants to be a teenager) with personal hygiene problems, which I suppose is fair enough as that pretty more or less its target market.

Of course the kids love it, but really, what do they know?

Next week: Why those Apple ipod ‘walkman’ things will never catch on…