On The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit series has never really grabbed the same attention the preceding Lord of The Rings series did for any number of reasons you want to pick out – cashcow, script stretching, less screen friendly content matter.

Naturally, the trilogy’s conclusion fits in with that dynamic being occasionally epic, occasionally banal but consistently…long.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (THTBOTFA for short, kind of) picks up where The Desolation of Smaug ends with Smaug angrily descending on Laketown to unleash fiery wanton destruction and the Dwarf fellowship set to claim the treasure under the Lonely Mountain.

What follows is two-and-a-half-hours of your usual Peter Jackson blend of battle scenes, undercooked romance and intense hairiness.

It’s a shame when something that was genuinely innovative and groundbreaking gets overtaken by rivals and left in the dust.

On the plus side, at least it doesn’t make the mistake of trying to keep up with other genre stablemates with graphic violence, countless sex scenes and exposed breast after exposed breast and sticks to what it does best.

In that regard, the climax battle scene is just as epic as any of the Lord of the Rings films and so, therefore, up there with the best in modern cinema.

And, as you would expect with any LOTR or The Hobbit films, the cinematography is stunning, augmented by that trademark New Zealand scenery and lovingly-crafted sets, perfect down to the smallest detail.

However, the feeling can’t be shaken that we are basically watching a film that is 13-years-old such is the shooting-style and script.

Everything script-wise is stretched to the limit to wring out as much screening time as possible (sound familiar with the rest of the series?) which is fair enough if it all stands up on screen, but in THTBOTFA it doesn’t. And that is saying something as close to half of the film is largely taken up with the battle alluded to in the title of the film.

The majority of these problems probably date back to that one fateful decision to make The Hobbit into three films – two would be enough and even probably one if we take out the ludicrous Gandalf ‘second storyline’ which sets up the Lord of The Rings trilogy a good century before it actually happens. I get keeping the dwarf/elf romance storyline as all modern films need a love angle to spread the demographic, but it is merely another adornment to pad out the script.

Towards the end, knowing nods allude to what is coming in the Lord of The Rings which quickly turn from being “ahh, clever” to “another one, really?” Something of a metaphor for how the two trilogies have kind of worked really. The thrilling finale of The Return of the King is more of a natural finish, but THTBOTFA does the best with what it can.

Oh, and ma-hoos-ive spoiler alert, again with the fucking eagles.

Something I can agree with teenage girls on

The things that are liked by both myself and teenage girls is a happily small pool.
Broadly speaking, things they like - One Direction, sexting, excessive make-up usage,teenage boys - are very different to the things I enjoy - FIFA 15, decent cider, writing and sleeping.
So, given lots of the crowd at the o2 Arena on Monday night were females aged between 11 and 19 wearing lots of eyeliner, perhaps the fair conclusion was to say either myself or all of them had got our dates and times hideously wrong and were at the wrong gig.
Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of Ed Sheeran - even more so reading up on his backstory prior to the gig (yeah I read to get a narrative before a gig as opposed to, I don't know, listening to the artist's entire back catalogue) - and he can write a good tune with actual proper lyrics.
But, I kind of thought, can a guy with a guitar really dominate an arena - keeping 12,000 people in the palm of his hand for 90 minutes, owning a rather large stage?
Well, the answer was quite emphatically, reject that thought Dan.
Sheeran was utterly superb - an enthralling watch from start to finish.
His slow, female-targeting songs were all well and nice, gentle strumming, nice lyrics and all that but his craftmanship is the truly astonishing thing.
Using perhaps a double figures amount of effects pedals, Sheeran makes it sound as if there are a band of four on stage rather than just one ginger fella younger than me (grrrrr) confident enough to play around with his tunes and engage with the audience off-the-cuff (with marriage proposals in the crown for example, lame!).
Recording a guitar rhythm section first off and then layering over a beat (smacked out on his guitar) and backing vocals together live on stage in front of a huge audience requires massive balls, to put it one way.
Then, with all that sorted, he bursts into a cutting mixture of clever, witty lyrics, extreme guitar shredding and occasional very adept rapping (I know what adept rapping sounds like of course...). In what surely lasted at least eight minutes, the mashup of 'You Need Me I Don't Need You' and a cover of Laid Blak's My Eyes Are Red' was a perfect example of this combination- it was truly astounding and thrilling.
I'm far from being a musical connoisseur, but it seems so innovative to use effects pedals so often, intelligently and properly to actually add to his offering rather than for the mere sake of it. 
Ultimately, a fantastic evening with an appeal for a wide variety of people.

Taking from the rich to pay the....slightly less rich

Money! Everyone loves money. Small pieces of paper that skyrocket in value depending on what they have printed on them and having lots of 0s on your bank statement, what's not to love?
Football, now football really loves money. Football is to money like Jesus is to Christians and Lynx is to teenage boys, the thing.
Except, except money is undergoing a bit of a rebrand in football. It is a dirty word, one to be loathed, detested, despised says walking, living, breathing, shrugging French strereotype and failed Blatter challenger Michel Platini.
Michel wants to balance up football, to make clubs live within their means and cut their cloth accordingly - leaving the powers that currently be, be the powers that be forevermore with their already paid-for, cash mountain generating massive stadiums and even larger reputations but unintended consequences and all that.
But poor old Michel is finding the love of dough is rather hard to overcome with football bigwigs (probably) literally being dragged kicking and screaming and greasily sliding to the Financial Fair Play table.
But yet, hurrah, results! Arab embassiesManchester City and Paris St-Germain being fined - the equivalent of stealing from my Kilner jar of pennies but a start nonetheless.
But oh no, hang on, where is this cash going to go? To help grassroots football? To subsidise matchday tickets? To readdress the balance between the haves and have nots of domestic football?
Nope, it is going into a great big massive pot to be distributed out among last year's Champions League and Europa League entrants, apparently.
That's right, the European Club Association has decided the £50m pot would best off be split among themselves - basically the same decision a conference of toddlers would make when deciding what to do with a box of Jelly Babies and Skittles.
So, the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea (as well as Wigan, Hull and Swansea) will receive a slice of around £212,000 to immediately piss away on paying Falcao for one set of weekdays. Glorious.
It is like making a really amazing cream cake and then screwing it all up right at the very end after being forced to substitute fresh cream for sour cream but still keeping the jam.
Some sense appears to reign back here in fair and honest Blighty with QPR's potential £40m FFP fine which would go to charity "rather than the other clubs under an agreement with the Premier League over its solidarity payments" though no word yet if the Premier League intends to apply for charity status in the near future.
The whole problem seems to be different bodies having jurisdictions over their own respective areas whether it be the Premier League, the Football League, UEFA and the ECA with ad-hoc compromises being formulated under the guise of having a 'flexible' system which most certainly wasn't thought up on the hoof and rushed through.
A laudable idea that doesn't quite work in practice, much like Euro 2016 expect for the laudable bit.

Wading in on #indref

One rung above the thing Scottish people may well loath most (public-school-educated, southern English politicians telling them which way to vote next Thursday) is any old English person telling them which way to vote next Thursday - 'aye' or 'ach no' to use a lazy, but invitingly easy, stereotype.
So, on we go, two penny-worth time.
There are countless things I'd miss about Scotland if it were to secede- a third colour which brightens up the Unions flag, charity challengers getting an easier ride by walking from Marshall Meadows to Land's End rather than John O'Groats and Twin Atlantic to name three.
But what I think I would dislike the most is having our clearly defined geographic landmass cut into two, separate pieces - much like across the Irish Sea though that was kind of the fault of we English anyway... like in Palestine...and much of Africa....and India and Pakistan....
Anyway, I've never been to Scotland and for all I know there could be a modern day Hadrian's Wall at the border complete with barbed wire, spotlights, sniper lasers and innumerable boxes of clinical, latex gloves to check people aren't smuggling Tennent's Super Strong Lager, heroin and the Daily Record.
But the idea that this landmass is split into two formally different countries feels me with a sadness I just can't quite understand, nor rationalise. It feels like my right arm - a pretty key part I'm sure you'll agree- suddenly deciding it doesn't want to be controlled by me anymore but has the distinct disadvantage of not being able to physically escape short of cutting itself off.
Perhaps a massive canal being built from coast-to-coast might be the solution should the 'ayes' have it next week so Scotland can drift off to shack up with Iceland in one of the most bizarre partnerships imaginable - Bjork meets Rod Stewart or Lazytown creator Magnis Scheving writing a show for James McAvoy.
However, despite the perceived support for the Union in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, we should not be allowed to have a say in the argument - it is the Scots' right to have their say on self-determination and if they say 'aye', what right do we have to hold them back like an older brother snatching back a stolen toy from a younger sibling? "Here you go...just kidding."
But if the Scottish were to vote for independence, there is a huge knock-on impact for the English identity. Being English is a concept I struggle with as apart from placing overwhelming, cloying and ultimately destructive faith in our sporting teams, what separates being English from being British?
If Scotland were to sod off, what we would be? The Dis-United Kingdom? Good Britain? Three loosely-associated countries, two of which probably have more in common with Scotland than they do England? Come to think of it, who would get custody of Wales?! Won't somebody please think of the Welsh.
An 'aye' may well be the springboard for Scottish pride and a reforming of the Scottish identity but an identity crisis would be left for the English - a cynic would suggest that might be a good campaigning tool for amateur Andrew Lloyd Webber lookalike Alec Salmond.
So whatever way you vote on Thursday Scotland, do it for the positive reasons and not the negative.
But if you do go, please take Gillian McKeith with you. Cheers.

On petsitting - a week of cat-astrophes and doggy crises

If having pets is a trial run for having kids (which for the purposes of this blog it most emphatically is), the last week has taught me I am ready for neither.
For the past week or so, I've been housesitting for my parents' while they are away on holiday - come at me burglars! - meaning I've had all the fun of running a household with the additional responsibility of caring after two cats; eating, shitting pain in the arses that I apparently can't help but love despite being completely and helplessly allergic to them.
There are also fish to look after but fish count as pets in the same way a pot plant does. Or any kind of plant for that matter.
Anyway, of the two cats, one is old and doddery and the other is young and mad as a bicycle so each presenting their own unique, engaging, glorious challenges.
The morning after the first night of petsitting, there lying at the bottom of the flight of stairs was a deposit that I'm fairly certain most human beings would not be able to pass. Seriously, if I wasn't so repulsed and annoyed, impressed would have been the only feeling to be expressing.
It was almost certainly done by the old, doddery one - the one who probably should know better, but either has selective memory on how a litter tray works or thinks it is a good laugh to pretend like he forgets, the bastard. I mean, you would definitely do that if you were a cat, wouldn't you?
Out came the scooper, the disinfectant, the scrubbing cleaning sponge thing and all that paraphernalia and before you knew it, clean hallway; disgusted, depressed Dan. Onwards we go.
Until that evening.
Surprise number two - cat water on the kitchen floor, in and around the bin. Out came the bucket and the gloves and the disinfectant and that stuff once again. And industrial amounts of Glade spray.
By this stage, I was honestly wondering how much a cattery costs for the week. I hadn't quite Googled it yet, but the thought was there. Or how much catnip it takes to stonk them out for seven days.
Fast forward four days and thankfully there were no more accidents (though the smell coming off their uneaten food at the end of every day was horrendously horrid) and it was time for a trip to the other half's for the weekend where she was dogsitting.
I'm growing to be a dog person - I've recently just about started to cope with them licking my face and in all fairness, they probably are more fun that cats - so I can cope with what they're all about.
Just to make sure he was alright and he could get to us if there was some sort of doggy crisis (unfortunately only felines have cat-astrophes), we slept with the door ajar.
The doggy crisis inevitably came, but clearly the crisis was that it was about 8.15 in the morning and I was still asleep. I'm not a fan of alarms at the best of times, but a cold, wet nose all over my facial features wasn't the most fun experience while groggy.
And, before we move on, there is nothing quite like a dog licking your face to extinguish morning glory - forget a cold shower, get a dog and get one that corresponds with how high your bed sits off the ground; probably no point getting a poodle if you have a four-poster...although they can jump up I guess...yeah, ignore the majority of this paragraph.
Come the end of the weekend and returning to the parents' house to get cracking on the inevitable pile of house husband shit that had piled up, SURPRISE, old, doddery one decides now is probably the best time to have a good old spray on the bin.
Seriously, the bin which I was stood about a foot away from with my back turned ready to show some cutlery who the boss was when it come to washing up.
Cue massive kick up the arse* and then deciding that wasn't enough and harrying him out of the door, shutting it behind him.
Gloves, disinfectant, yada, yadda. Then I repotted my bonsai tree to chill out, as that is exactly how I roll.
However, you probably won't be surprised to hear that this post has been written while old, doddery one is asleep by my side and I ended up playing with the dog for most of the weekend and taking him for walks.
Sigh, pets.


*If the RSPCA are reading this, it wasn't THAT massive. We're still friends, the pair of us. And he is sitting down without complaint.

Alexandre Gaydamak and Portsmouth vs Anton Zingarvich and Reading

I'm currently reading Jim White's (the writer, not the football transfer maniac with more mobiles than a modern day Pablo Escobar) ambitious 'Premier League; A History in 10 Matches' which explores...well, you can probably guess what the subject matter is.
The eighth match in the book is one Reading fans will never be able to forget as it was one of the most conspicstaging posts in the collapse of our greatest ever team.
It was on Saturday, September 29. Stephen Hunt, Dave Kitson, Shane Long and an OG from a Nicky Shorey short were our scorers. And we still lost.
Yup, it was Portsmouth 7 Reading 4 - a match which presumably still has Alan Hansen waking up in the middle of the night drenched in cold sweat and needing to turn the bedside table lamp on.
The chapter focuses largely on the largescale financial incompetence at Portsmouth under the ill-fated Harry Redknapp/ Alexandre Gaydamak axis starting in around 2006 and how the club are still paying the price for that to this very day. The Reading angle is largely sketched in (small club inferiority complex yada yada yada), but more on which later.
The overall summarisation being that Portsmouth's demise changed the way the Premier League saw the potential financial implosion of its members - from being something very distant to being a genuine threat (though one which one always got the feeling they were hoping to just keep Portsmouth going until the end of the season and then they would be the Football League's problem).
The chapter ends on a positive with the takeover of Portsmouth by its Supporters' Trust and highlighting the fact that their opponents on that strange September afternoon were a sustainable model they could seek to emulate.
This book was written last year and hindsight is 20/20 of course but given the events of the past year at Reading, it makes such a suggestion seem somewhat laughable. The pace of change in modern football, eh?
The club and Sir John Madejski are praised in the book for the self-sustainable model imposed and more or less achieved (in relative football terms anyway) from 2006 to 2011 - a model which many Reading fans were rightly proud of and perhaps, whisper it, even miss the security of.
While Portsmouth chased the dream and lived so scarily obviously - and obviously scarily - beyond their limited means, Reading cut their cloth (to use the parlance) and lived within their similarly limited means.
However, both ended up being sold on to a young owner with ties to Russia with no real indication given where they had earned their respective wealth with suggestions dubious Daddy was behind each of them respectively.
While Reading - or so it would seem if the latest takeover gets finalised - were saved by the early prudent bookkeeping and owning their stadium and their training ground (making them a much more attractive purchase), Portsmouth were not so lucky and League Two has proved to be the place where enough anvils were thrown out of the hot balloon to allow them to float.
Were it not for Reading's circumstances of owing a modern, income-generating machine of a stadium, the post-Zingaravich world could be looking a lot worse - indeed, genuine fears over administration earlier this summer suggests it may not have been all that far away.
All of which goes back to that 7-4 game nearly seven years ago where two similar-sized clubs met with markedly different immediate pasts, presents and immediate futures but ended up going in the same direction (though to differing extents) further down the line.

In defence of Alastair Cook

The time was 12.58pm on Monday, July 21. The largely Indian crowd at HQ was subdued - even the chap who wanted to stand in everyone's way at the foot of the Lower Compton to get pictures of himself had sat down, the victim of an epic Coca-Cola spill on a white shirt - a 100-run partnership had been secured and the first bottle of wine was nearly finished. All was well and good.
Then Moeen Ali got caught between pulling and ducking (pucking?).
An hour of play later and that was that - England all out, six wickets lost for around 50 runs or so, tipsy but inoffensive Indian fans were delighted and England fans were just plain offended. A collapse to a fast-medium pacer in English conditions deploying some short-pitched stuff.
Batsman after batsman going taking on the hook and pull.
Prior? Live by the sword, die by the sword right and play to your strengths but read the situation as an experienced player - there are three men out on the hook. Leave the short ball alone.
Stokes? Yes you're out of form and slightly green but take a look at the scoreboard. Leave the short ball well alone.
Root? Likewise. You've batted superbly for 66. You have lost three partners in quick session. You have only played 19 Tests but take a step back and breathe. And leave the short ball well alone.
Broad? Well, you're not an all-rounder so we can let you off really.
Inevitably, the inquest spotlights fell on to Alastair Cook, unfairly in my view.
The buck probably does stop with the captain but what can he do when his players are not using their brains?
Yes he can score more runs but that isn't going to get his batsman to play properly. He was incredibly proactive in both innings when talking to his bowlers (for the most part) but if they don't use their initiative as professionals, what more can the captain do? What else can the skipper do to get his senior players backing him and leading alongside him when he is already taking scorchers of catches and setting relatively smart fields?
Yes Matt Prior and Stuart Broad in particular look to be carrying injuries and are knackered but there is no shame in sticking your hand up and saying 'I can't carry on' rather than forcing your captain and management team in to having to make a tough decision. Ian Bell is out of form and James Anderson is probably pretty shattered and distracted by the Jadeja spat furthermore.
Cook has enough to worry about with his own form without having no-one to stand alongside him
He is still the best man for the job. Without wishing to make him sound like the best of a bad bunch, every other candidate has a worse CV.
Bell - equally as out of form. Root - arguably in too good form (captaincy will drag it down). Prior? No form and injured. Eoin Morgan? Average Test record and no first class captaincy experience. Chris Read? He's nearly 37 and averages 19 - you might as well bring back Mike Brearley. Any bowler? Too many Tests crammed into a short space of time so they won't play regularly.
Furthermore, what would be the point in shaking up the team so violently when the Rose Bowl Test is five days away?
Cook should remain as captain - though certainly take a break after the Tests and come back in the winter - as he is still the best candidate - mentally strong, seen it all in the game, the natural choice and up until a year ago, a very good track record.
Unlike Andrew Strauss - a very similar captain - and perhaps in a similar vein to Ricky Ponting, Cook has had to deal with the demise of a very good team. In the past year, for one reason or another, Cook has lost Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, and Graeme Swann.
Cook probably has a similar job description to that of Nasser Hussain - the changing of the guard with a young team in transition. Who will be the new Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard to lead the next generation? Root, Gary Ballance, Moeen Ali and Chris Jordan look promising but not ready for leadership.
Cook still wants the role and can lead the next generation through. Let him get on with it.

Starting XI for the Third Test vs India- Cook (C), Robson, Ballance, Taylor, Root, Ali, Buttler, Woakes, Plunkett, Jordan, Anderson

An ode to an NHS A&E department from a first-time adult user

Last night, for the first time in 15 years, I found myself in the Accident and Emergency department (as with the last time, very much emphasis on 'accident') of the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
My problem? Drunken misdemeanor involving a traffic cone and a statue of Queen Victoria? Punched in the face repeatedly after defending an old lady from two callous criminals? Falling off a bicycle and under a truck, leaving my lower body looking like a toothpaste tube nearing the end of its natural usage? Anything even remotely cool or exciting?
Nope. Bet that wasn't a surprise...
Being a spry, youthful 24-year-old, it was a dodgy back. Yeah, a dodgy back. A debilitating, horrendous, tear-inducing series of sharp, stabbing, excruciating jots of agony pouring out of my lower back up as far up as my shoulders and down as low as my knees leaving me on two occasions unable to move and, even now, stooped like a marginally prettier Hunchback of Notre Dame (but with a far worse singing voice apparently). All that and more. But still, a 24-year-old hobbling into A&E with a hot water bottle crammed into my lumbar region with a back problem.
Anyway, enough self-pity.
Outside of a Wetherspoons at 7.30 in the evening, the A&E department of any hospital at nighttime is perhaps the closest you can get to a Mad Hatter's tea party - sans tea and cake but with added vending machine Fanta - in terms of strange, concerning and daft characters.
In roughly two-and-a-half hours last night (big up the NHS for that short wait) I witnessed, to mention but three:
-a certainly drunk and potentially mentally troubled middle-aged gent who arrived in ambulance, was led out from the A&E ward to the waiting room, asked the receptionist on five separate occasions if he could go back on the ward to find his '£220 glasses', asked who had won the football 'Brazil or Argentina', fell asleep in the toilet for half an hour and then fell asleep again outside the toilet door for another 15 minutes.
-a chap behind a pair of dark glasses who had an 'accident' at 7pm the night before, proceeded to sit in the waiting room for 90 minutes making out with his very blonde other half and then deciding to head home- despite said other half referring to a 'fractured eye socket'- mentioning the word (presumably not entirely in jest) 'curfew' to the receptionist as he left
-a woman rant and rave about the competency of NHS staff to a poor Irish patient who looked as if all she wanted to do was be on her own but was far too polite to say so.
And then some people who were genuinely injured and in quite some pain.
Through all this, the lovely NHS staff took it all in their stride and got on with their jobs with smiles on their faces, the picture of politeness when by rights they should be legally (let alone ethically) allowed to administer a heavy dose of tranquilisers and be granted a short, sharp kick to the sensitive parts of said damn fools - me included for basically turning up to get some super-strong codeine when there were people who walked as if one of their legs had been replaced with a none-too-supple pool cue.
Personally, in my adult life, I've never had to rely on the NHS apart from an occasional GP visit, but happily paid my taxes knowing that one day I would need to utilise it. That night came last night.
For free at the point of use, I could call a hotline to get some information and help, speak to an on-call doctor (who basically told me to go to A&E and get off the phone, perhaps as the second half of the World Cup final was just starting), get checked out, reassured, get some painkillers and be granted the bliss of a relatively painless night's sleep, advice on how to get literally back on my feet and prevent it from happening again in the future from pleasant, knowledgeable staff, all within three hours or so.
What more could you possibly ask? Except maybe more comfortable chairs...

Play-offs good, promotion bad. Thoughts ahead of Reading's last game of the season

The journey is more often than not far more enjoyable than the destination. The commute into work, the slow process of getting drunk rather than actually being drunk and watching The Dark Knight Rises are all disappointing testament to this.
Oh, as is promotion to the Premier League, which the comparison with the commute to work is probably most apt.
Flying through on green lights/ tearing apart all-comers? Check.
Dreams of endless possibilities that can be achieved in the day/season to come? Check.
Ultimate disappointment and looking forward to getting home/back to the Championship? Checkity, check, check.
And so we come to the last day of this season with Reading battling to secure a play-off place which a win against Burnley on Saturday will secure.
But is promotion really something we, as fans, would or, perhaps should, want?
In the optimistic aftermath of our last two promotions, Reading fans were rightly hopeful of achieving a modicum of success in the top flight. The glorious 2005/06 season where records were smashed and the 2011/12 campaign where we came from nowhere to win the title both hinted at a long-term plan and a team capable of competing at a higher level.
The promises of the 106 season proved to exceed expectations - albeit for one season - while the 2012/13 Premier League season probably paints a better picture of what we should expect if we were to win the most unexpected of promotions this season.
The feeling throughout the 2011/12 season throughout the superb second half of the campaign was when our opponents were going to find out our limitations and exploit them and this season, our form has been even worse yet somehow we are in the play-off picture.
With all due respect, this squad is not as good as the 2011/12 season let alone the 2005/06 vintage - though possessing the trademark character and strength of will associated with a lot of Reading teams so far this century - so what could we expect in the Premier League next season?
Presumably, with no investment looking likely, weekly batterings, non-existent confidence in the squad and relegation by early April would probably be a fair assessment.
Furthermore, if the club does get promoted and is suddenly far more attractive to an oversea moneybags buyer a) what chance fair and due diligence will be done on them in the rush to get some cash and b) how likely is it to expect funding to be in place for new signings outside of a late August, Crystal Palace-style splurgefest last summer which Tony Pulis has proven to have been completely futile?
Football may well be about the glory, but those who cannot see a long-term plan and decry anyone not wanting promotion immediately to be unambitious are themselves incredibly naive.
I would be delighted with a play-off place and even a play-off final as it can be enjoyed stress-free with no desire for promotion, similar to the Swansea play-off final in 2011 which was nowhere near as heartbreaking as 1995 or 2001, no matter what anyone says.
A few years at Championship level building properly and steadily is no bad thing. The clubs more successful at establishing themselves in the Premier League in recent years - Wigan, Stoke, Swansea - spent a few years in the Championship laying the foundations of becoming a Premier League team.
We've had the chance twice, but failed to take it for one reason or another. This time around, we have a talented crop of youngters coming through which, coupled with Nigel Adkins' track record of blooding young players, bodes well for long-term building with the right leadership from the board.

But that's another issue for another day.

Amazing Greys with their hammer of comeuppance

 Do you know what's cracking good fun? Laughing at other people and TV show creators just know it.
Many modern entertainment programmes are based exactly on that premise, making us all feel better about ourselves as we sit watching TV every night getting slowly older, balder and full of aches which must be nothing...not worth bothering the doctor about surely.
The Only Way Is Essex? Ha, they lack primary school level syntax. Deal Or No Deal? Chortle, some people think chanting will change what they will find in a box. The Jeremy Kyle Show? Well, you get the picture.
Laughing at social groups or 'show title first, show format second'. That's the secret to TV success. I know the rules, but just don't want to exploit them to my own ends...
Amazing Greys (ho, ho) fits both of those categories - a pun title and the mild titillating thrill that you'll get to laugh at a segment of the social strata - this time the older generation.
The premise of the show is a strapping young person, cocksure and fancy-free, strides on to Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway stage (decorated slightly differently) to take on a series of challenges where he or she will take on a person who experienced food rationing, the Suez Crisis and men always wearing great hats.
Said young person is seemingly encouraged to make a series of thrusting pronouncements the jist of which he will beat someone who has 50 years on him/her at any game - making them look less confident and more of a bullying 'banter-saurus'.
The show sets you up to think the young person will sweep all before them and take home £10,000. I mean, look at the opposition. Take a good, long look at them. They're old! They like slippers and read the Daily Express and wear fantastically ironed trousers.
But, wait, hold the phone, all is not as it would seem. This older generation are all experts in their fields (like a 1940s-born version of Eggheads but far less annoying). They make amusing cracks and jokes. Some of them aren't even grey!
And lo! More often than not they wipe the floor with their opponents and it is wonderfully life-affirming.
Not the fact older people are showing off mad skillz, bur rather arrogant Take Me Out-standard knobheads usually getting their comeuppance handed to them from someone three times their age.
They even get the chance to be given a 'headstart' in one of the games and get gimme questions about Katy Perry or TOWIE and still they fail.
Ha ha, screw you young people with your sexual promiscuity and your haircuts and your Daily Star and your skinny jeans - you got beaten by people with decades of experience in their field, a field you presumably have very little experience in. Ha ha! Oh.

Big Men In Little Shorts - the Six Nations and I

You know the feeling when something sounds really important - like the annexation of Crimea or what that woman from The Only Way is Essex wore to dinner last night - but you just cannot seem to give it the same amount of interest as say, freeing the sock fluff from in between your toes?
That is basically how I feel about Big Men In Little Shorts From Half A Dozen Countries Pushing Each Other While Being Terribly Polite About The Whole Thing - or to give it its official name, the RBS Six Nations.
I get that it's important in the world of rugby and usually I'm unthinking enough to buy into jingoism and Scot-bashing played out on grass in most other sports but...just...something...there is something about it that means I end up writing a blog that will be read by eight people at most while the tournament culminates.
It's the sporting equivalent of not watching Borgen or not listening to Yeezus by Kanye West - it probably is worth my time, but that doesn't mean I will.
Then again, I polished off Breaking Bad in the last six weeks, just started watching House of Cards and read all of the so-far-published A Song of Ice and Fire books in about four months so I'm just as mindless and sheep-like enough to follow the tempting, tempting crowd with their offers of social acceptance in those fields anyway.
Just for some reason, the sport really, really does not draw me in. Do you know where I was when England got to the World Cup Final in 2003 and 2007 - in a branch of Argos and at a dog-racing evening respectively which about sums it all up.
I'd watch golf in the form of the Ryder Cup over either code of rugby which I don't like typing, but that is simply the way it is.
All in all, it must be pretty much the same feeling that people who are ambivalent to the omnipresent, all-consuming monster that is football feel for the rest of the 45-odd weeks of the year - enduring the never-ending questions of "Did you watch the game?", "Did you see X fuck up?", "I hate Y so much; how about you?" and so on and so forth.
No I didn't watch it, can we talk about something else? Nope, thought not. I'll go back to de-fluffing my littlest toe.

The Winter Olympics - an 'expert's' view

Despite it basically being a collection of increasingly madcap ways of getting down a frozen hill really, really fast, the Winter Olympics are something amazing.
Tales of triumph over adversity, the very real chance of catastrophic injury for the competitors, the glory, the very real chance of catastrophic injury for the competitors, the political animosity, the very real chance of catastrophic injury for the competitors, the back stories, the very real chance of catastrophic injury, the token athletes from countries where snow has only ever been read about and the very real chance of catastrophic injury for the competitors.
But the best thing about it is, much like the summer Games, you can become an 'expert' in the sports you are watching within 20 minutes of first tuning in.
Take, for example, the slopestyle snowboarding this morning which consisted of 12 very dude-ish dudes going down a massive hill very fast on a five-foot-long piece of plastic with an American dude out dude-ing all the over dudes to take home the gold medal.
At first, you watch it and have pretty much no idea what is going on. There are "frontsides" and "bolts" and "triples" and "1260s" and lots of blond hair in a whirlwind of snow, blue sky and over-excitable commentary.
The only two vaguely normal - and so, by extension, ridiculously incongruous- things witnessed were at one stage, someone knitting at the top of the slope and most of the boarders having their gloves tied to their jackets, like Dougal in Father Ted does.
To add to the confusion, the scoring system is stupid and subjective with judges marking the dudes down for slight technical deficiencies like issues with their shoulder position or maybe a hair is out of place or their jacket wasn't baggy enough or something.
Anyway, fast forward about a dozen jumps and you find yourself saying "Oh he didn't nail the bolt-on there; that will cost him" or "That was such an awesome triple" or "What a perfect rodeo". Being British, one then gets terribly embarrased.
The other thing about being British is you buy into backing your countrymen (one of whom was second at one point and so I got that horrible hopeful feeling and another who was competing without a cruciate ligament - an item of the human body I've always considered pretty important). Given they are British and this is the Winter Olympics, one imagines they probably train by buying a Hobby Craft-ful of that fake snow stuff at Christmas time and taking a trip to their local park.
But that is all the fun of the Games - lesser-known athletes enjoying themselves on the biggest stage after four years of hard work and the audience finding out more about sports they have never seen before and perhaps getting really into them. Like we didn't with Greco-Roman wrestling and synchronized swimming at London 2012...