Yesterday I finished university for the summer, and with that I thought it’s time to clear my overdraft and try and earn some money. I’m staying in Sunderland this summer, where as usually I’m in York at the hotel I’ve worked at part-time for the past two years. That’s not an option any more now I’m 90-odd miles away. Having handed in my final assignment today (which was bloody awful I feel I should add) I printed off 25 CVs and spent the afternoon peppering the bars/clubs of Sunderland with job applications.
By the time I got home I had four missed calls. All from one place!
I rang them back and they said I needed to fill in a company application form, and knowing that they’d only ring me for this if they liked my CV I said I’d be back shortly. When I turned up the lady who was in charge at the time made me a drink, put the form in front of me and then disappeared. By the time I’d filled it in she sat down, said she’d read my CV over the phone to the manager and I’d got the job! (Pending a brief induction tomorrow and a two week trial, which she says I’ll have no problems with)… All this within the space of an hour or two.
I got home only to receive another phone call from this bar to ask if I could start the same night, but I had to refuse as I’ve no black shirt/trousers just yet. That’s on my to-do list for today.
I can’t believe how keen they are. It’s almost flattering! I’m well chuffed with it. I was expecting a week or two before I even heard back from anywhere, and even then I thought I’d only some short, measly shifts while I got used to the place but this bar want me ASAP :D.
She told me that there’s a shortage of lads at this particular bar and they’re desperate to recruit some. The place is full of rather attractive female students… which is a bonus. I’m actually quite excited about this job!
I’ve purposefully not named the place as I know people who’ve been fired for talking/posting about their jobs online. So it will remain anonymous!
Manchester United have scored a major summer transfer coup by swooping for highly-rated Portugal-based duo Anderson and Nani.
Most of the best clubs in Europe, including Chelsea and Real Madrid, have been linked with one of the pair at some stage over the past few months.
But a flying visit to Portugal by Red Devils chief executive David Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson’s assistant Carlos Queiroz has proved exceptionally fruitful.
Fees have been agreed with the players’ respective clubs - FC Porto and Sporting Lisbon - and personal terms have also been sorted out.
All that remains are the medicals and, in Anderson’s case, a work permit, before the formal conclusion of the transfers are announced.
With a deal to sign Owen Hargreaves from Bayern Munich virtually done and dusted as well, Ferguson has not allowed the grass to grow under his feet since United were crowned champions earlier this month.
Ferguson suggested he was after at least three new players to bolster his squad.
But no-one expected him to act so quickly, with the overall fees for all three men likely to exceed the £40million mark, the first major cash splurge since Malcolm Glazer’s controversial buyout almost two years ago.
‘Manchester United is delighted to announce it has agreed terms in principle with FC Porto and Sporting Lisbon for the purchase of the registrations of Anderson and Nani,’ said a club statement.
‘Personal terms have been agreed and a formal announcement will take place once the necessary administrative procedures, including medicals, have been completed.’
Anderson has been one of the most sought-after young talents in the game since he was crowed player of the tournament in the 2005 World Under-17 Championships.
The Brazilian teenager, who has established himself as one of the best attacking midfielders in the Portuguese League, has been named by national coach Dunga in a preliminary squad for this summer’s prestigious Copa America.
United have been tailing Nani for some time but appeared to have been thwarted in their attempts to sign him when it was suggested the 20-year-old was ready to extend his stay with Sporting.
However, the proposed contract remained unsigned, allowing Ferguson to step in and snap up the Portugal international.
Ferguson will cross his fingers and hope his new arrivals enjoy the same kind of success as the last player he signed from Portugal, footballer of the year Cristiano Ronaldo.
Their arrivals should certainly help Ronaldo feel at ease, particularly if the winger’s friend Gabriel Heinze is sold this summer as expected.
It is certainly an astute piece of business by Ferguson, who realises two of his main attacking stars, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes - while outstanding this season - are reaching the end of their careers.
With Hargreaves on board as well and the likelihood of a big-name striker being signed, United have signalled a statement of intent for the new campaign.
All the new arrivals will make their bows on the club’s pre-season Far East tour.
However, the Old Trafford outfit are believed to be close to abandoning the final, Malaysian leg of the trip.
The Old Trafford outfit had hoped a personal visit from Gill to Malaysia could help resolve the row which has erupted over their visit, which was part of the country’s 50th anniversary celebrations but also clashes with the prestigious Asia Cup.
However, with the Asian Football Confederation holding the right of veto over the fixture, scheduled for July 27, and showing no sign of bending, the point is approaching when United finally admit defeat and find an alternative fixture to slot into a pre-season programme, which already includes an Old Trafford encounter with Inter Milan on August 1.
Well where the hell did that come from?
I can’t believe my eyes. Not one, but two new starlets on their way to Old Trafford. Not to mention Hargreaves as well!
Seems Ferguson wants a team full of Ronaldo’s because these two (Nani/Anderson) are along the same lines. Anderson is an attacking midfielder who I’m led to believe can also play wide left and up front, and Nani is an out-and-out winger much like Cristiano Ronaldo. I say much like because these guys have skills galore. Anderson is a typical Brazilian and for what it’s worth has been dubbed ‘the new Ronaldinho’ (isn’t everyone?). Everyone’s been talking about Nani signing for ages but I thought it was just idle gossip… I never once expected him to come… and even when I contemplated it I certainly never thought a 19 year old Brazilian wonderkid would join him :D.
I’ve criticised the depth in the Manchester United midfield for a while now but it now seems our prayers have been answered. Giggs/Scholes, whilst great last season, are coming to the end of their careers and Fergie has found two guys who will be settled and raring to go by the time Giggs/Scholes hang up their boots (which will be years yet). Thus next season we’re looking at a midfield of Nani/Giggs, two of Scholes/Anderson/Carrick/Hargreaves as well as Ronaldo. God knows what will happen to Park, Fletcher and Richardson now (maybe they’ll get what they deserve) but that midfield is frightening… exactly what we needed! I don’t want to rave about these signings just yet because just like Cristiano they’re going to need a lot of time to adapt to England but at ages 19 (Anderson) and 20 (Nani) they’ve got plenty of time.
Well played Fergie, well played.
For those who have no idea why I’m so excited… here’s some clips.
Anderson: (check the skill by the corner flag where he drags the ball behind him with one foot and then round the front of him with the same foot… absolutely mind boggling)
Yesterday was the Evolution Festival in Newcastle. A day of free music spread across two stages located on the quayside of Newcastle/Gateshead. One stage, where I spent the whole day, focuses on live acts/bands, and the other is made up of DJs and stuff. This year the Spillers Wharf stage (live act based) hosted Kano, The Enemy and Maximo Park (headlining) as well as a few others. Not a bad line up when it’s completely free to get in!
It all started at 1.30pm with The Motorrettes, who we missed, but followed by them was Kano at about half 3 I think:
Kano was pretty unspectacular. I’ve seen him four or five times now and I’m a big fan of his. In Newcastle yesterday he turned up late (twenty minutes or so) and sluggishly performed only five songs. He was blessed with a great sound system and he was crystal clear, but I don’t think the crowd knew much about him and he didn’t really seem like he wanted to be there. He performed some of his best stuff like “Ps & Qs”, “Reload It” but not “Typical Me”? His new stuff also sounded pretty good, but I can’t help but think he couldn’t be arsed when he wasn’t getting a decent reaction from the crowd.
After Kano me and my mates…
… sat down and people watched for about two hours, had some food and then some hot drinks to warm us up. After all, this whole thing was taking place on a cold, windy afternoon by Newcastle’s quayside. It was NOT warm at all. So we missed Joe Jackson and someone else I think. I can’t remember.
We picked ourselves up and found a nice spot to watch Coventry band The Enemy:
I can’t tell you much about The Enemy except that the lead singer thinks he’s Liam Gallagher. But they were pretty good. I enjoyed their set. They played a decent hour’s worth of material, so my interest kind of faded because I didn’t know their songs, but I was tapping my feet along for most of it. Now I’ve listened to some of their stuff since Evolution I must say that they’re nothing special, but if you like the current indie-pop era then they might do something for you.
After this we stayed in position, foolishly I might add, to watch soft rockers Echo and the Bunnymen:
Our alternative to this was Simian Mobile Disco Live on the Baltic Stage (a 30+ minute walk away) and I knew we’d made the wrong decision as the youngsters around started to phase out to be replaced by middle aged men with grey pony tails. Not good. Echo and the Bunnymen, who played a few songs I recognised, can only be described as dad rock. Status Quo without the pop. They were so so bland. Stage presence: 0. And worst of all there were no bunny suits. Shame on them.
But the real highlight of the day was seeing Newcastle’s own, Maximo Park:
(I couldn’t get a decent picture for the life of me. The natural light disappeared, my phone camera is rubbish and there were dozens of spotlights dazzling my lense. But these will do!)
Everyone seemed to cram into the Spillers Wharf car park to see Maximo Park, and what a great show they put on. I don’t know too much about Maximo Park but every song they played that I knew, I absolutely loved - “Apply Some Pressure”, “Books From Boxes”, “Velocity” and a couple of others. The crowd were so much better than they had been for Kano, although that’s to be expected, and the atmosphere made the show even better. I’ve not seen Maximo Park before and I was stunned at the energy of their frontman. Wasn’t so impressed with his verbal diarrhea between songs, but he himself pointed out that he was “talking shit”. Your words mate, your words!
By the time they finished it was gone 11PM. And we’d been in Newcastle since about 2ish. That’s a lot of free music. And a lot of stiff legs too. We had to use these cardboard legs to run to the metro station (a good half hours walk! if not more) and we only just made the last metro. As we got to the platform the train pulled right up. Such a close squeeze, especially as it was the last one back to Sunderland.
A very good day was had by one and all. I wish they’d do more of these festivals. I’m already looking forward to next year’s (where I’ll avoid dad rockers and try to see more DJ-ing).
Maybe, just maybe I’m a little late with this one. Seeing as radio and various websites have been raving about the young Rascal’s return single for atleast two months now - but I’ve only just come to appreciate it once I saw the video.
I’ve just this minute come back from the Evolution festival in Newcastle and, in the mood for blasting some loud music, turned to Sirens and consequently youtube’d the track to check out the video. Quality stuff from Mr Rascal. Not quite “Fix Up, Look Sharp!” but not far off. His third studio album, “Maths and English” is gathering rave reviews from all the right places (Guardian, Pitchfork, etc) so I’m very excited about that. I was trying to keep Sirens out of my rotation until the album came round… but I can’t help myself. Seems this summer could be great for British rap - Dizzee, Wiley, J2K, Kano all to release albums in the next few months… Klashnekoff/Roll Deep have already put out LPs this year… and sure Sway/others will contribute new material before the 2007 is over and out.
Apologies for another lazy youtube post. I’ll post pics and stuff from the Evolution fest after I’ve had some sleep, but for now just sit back and enjoy Dizzee’s new banger “Sirens”.
Taken from yesterday’s show on the radio. This is Danny’s find, and it’s a spectacular one. Remi Nicole is a blend of indie style, hip hop rhythm and uplifting pop. She’s currently supporting Amy Winehouse on a couple of dates on her UK-tour.
And Remi is pretty too.
Here are some of her upcoming tour dates:
27 May 2007 18:00 Clash Sunday Sessions @ Lock Tavern, London
28 May 2007 8:00 Shepherd’s Bush Empire - w/Amy Winehouse, London
29 May 2007 8:00 Shepherd’s Bush Empire - w/Amy Winehouse, London
6 Jun 2007 20:00 Club NME Dundee Dundee, Scotland
7 Jun 2007 20:00 Club NME Glasgow Glasgow, Scotland
9 Jun 2007 20:00 Club NME Oldham Manchester, Northwest
9 Jun 2007 20:00 Club NME Oldham Manchester, Northwest
12 Jun 2007 20:00 Barfly Birmingham, Midlands
14 Jun 2007 20:00 Club NME Middlesbrough Middlesbrough, Midlands
15 Jun 2007 20:00 Barfly Liverpool, Northeast
16 Jun 2007 20:00 Purr Club, Fopp Bath, East
22 Jun 2007 12:00 Glastonbury Glastonbury, Midlands
24 Jun 2007 14:00 Glastonbury Somerset, Southwest
7 Jul 2007 8:00 T in The Park Glasgow
14 Jul 2007 8:00 Latitude Festival Suffolk
12 Aug 2007 8:00 Summer Sundae Festival Leicester, Midlands
18 Aug 2007 8:00 V Festival Chelmsford/Hylands, Midlands
19 Aug 2007 8:00 V Festival Chelmsford / hylands, Midlands
25 Aug 2007 8:00 Cardiff Calling Cardiff, Wales
26 Aug 2007 8:00 Get Loaded In The Park London, London and South East
8 Sep 2007 8:00 Bestival Isle Of Wight, South
And Danny found this article about her in NME, which makes for interesting reading and frames Remi better than I can:
And as usual, here’s a couple of tracks from her myspace page, “Rock N Roll” and “Fed Up”:
It seems every show is ending about now. This week was the season finale of Lost, in the past few months we’ve seen The O.C., Prison Break, Friday Night Lights and plenty of others all come to an end. Heroes has been a bit of a revelation this year - not so much in the UK, but definitely in the States. I’ve really enjoyed it too, its not like anything else on TV and the concept is just so so good.
I won’t say too much about the finish but the finale I anticpated almost came to life. I was expecting all the Heroes to cross paths and somehow end up in capes (because it’s been getting cheesier and cheesier throughout the series). None of them ended up in capes, but there was a fair amount of cheese I must say. But then again that was always going to be the case.
Apparently there’ll be a Heroes mini-series this summer with potential new characters, and we’ll be able to vote for the ones we want incorporated into season two. I don’t know what powers can be left though? Should be interesting.
To watch/download the season finale, click here. In a week or so I’ll preview some of the new shoes that are debuting in the fall/autumn - I’ll warn you now that I only noticed one from 30+ that will be any good.
I was hoping the video might bring this song to life but it’s a rather low-key, low-budget, low-on-entertainment and low on everything but Kanye waving his arms around in a desert kind of video. And nobody likes those. I’m a big fan of Kanye West but this song is dull, the beat is one of the worst I’ve heard him produce, there’s nothing to the lyrics that makes up for such a poor beat and a combination of bad beat/plain lyrics usually means crap song. But it’s grown on me a little since I first heard it. Hope there’s more to his album “Graduation” than this, which of course, I’m sure there will be.
Don’t let this picture fool you, Ben is far from anything but cool with our plane-crashees.
Today was the finale of the third season of Lost, which I was unware of until this morning. So its ending on episodes 22 and 23. I’ve mixed feelings on this ending. Season 2’s last episode was quite possibly the best hour of television I’ve ever seen, and this two-parter seemed to be heading in a similar direction but the finale really didn’t do much for me… to the point where I’m more “how are they going to carry on?” in series four than “oh my god! i can’t wait for it to come back!” I’m sure everybody who has seen it knows what I mean.
It’s been on a three month hiatus, but Studio 60 is finally back. Such good news is soured by the more general overview that the show is being scrapped after its first series. This is the 17th episode (24th May) and the series will be 22 in total, with NBC deciding that they won’t be filming a 2nd series. Shame really because Studio 60 was a fantastically mature yet entertaining show, definitely worth a slot in the schedule anyway. Oh well, atleast we can take comfort in the fact that there’s five more episodes (better than nothing!).
To download/watch episode 17, “The Disaster Show”, click here.
It was never going to be the final of two years ago, but last night was certainly a very entertaining final. In the first Milan-Liverpool final of 2005 I wrote that I was happy for Liverpool for what they’d achieved, and now I’m in two minds – equally happy for Milan that they managed to get their revenge, and gutted for Liverpool (who week in, week out I hate) because I have friends who will be absolutely cut up today.
I think the most bitter pill to swallow for Liverpool fans will be the fact that they were probably the better team. They more than doubled the amount of shots on goal that Milan had, and they forced three times as many saves from the keeper. In the first half Milan were bombarded by crosses from Jermaine Pennant, they didn’t know what to do with Steven Gerrard and Alonso/Mascherano were running the show in midfield. There wasn’t even that much for the Liverpool defence to do. All this domination and then Liverpool gave away an unnecessary free kick on Kaka, only for Fillipo Inzaghi to get in the way of an Alessandro Pirlo free kick – resulting in it bouncing unchallenged into an open net.
You felt at this point that there was no way that AC would allow Liverpool back into the game the way they did two years ago. And partly, they didn’t. Whilst Milan didn’t take control of the game in the second half, with Liverpool coming onto them a lot more, they were more protective of their lead. Desperate long balls from Liverpool bounced into a sea of white shirts, and with Steven Gerrard pushing further and further forward the Liverpool midfield started to lose its dominance.
An equally surprising second goal came from Milan with ten minutes or so to play. Inzaghi ran across the back four, behind Agger, and curved his run superbly to stay onside for a pass from Kaka. Then Inzaghi ran unchallenged towards the Liverpool goal, side-stepped Reina and slotted the ball coolly under the Spanish goal keeper. A lovely goal from an AC Milan perspective. An awful goal to watch for Liverpool fans. Agger wasn’t in line with the rest of his defence, Carragher tried to play Inzaghi offside instead of following his man and the Liverpool full backs rendered such a trap obsolete by being a few yards behind Agger. It was sloppy defending and Inzaghi punished them for it.
Kuyt did grab a consolation goal before the end of the game, which I feel was much deserved, but Milan were much tighter in their defence than they were a few years ago. And Liverpool didn’t swamp the Milan penalty area with men, which the long balls definitely required.
It was strange to see Milan on the back foot for the majority of the game having seen them blow Manchester United out of the water. I suspect many felt this would be a relatively easy game for Milan considering the way they dealt with the Premiership champions. But that was never the case. Milan’s midfield was absent for the majority of the game – the four men that you would have expected to inspire them to victory were the four men that probably shone the least. Gattuso, famous for his tenacity and aggression didn’t storm around the pitch to retrieve the ball. Pirlo, a majestic passer of the ball and creative genious kept possession but didn’t really force any chances. Seedorf was neither here nor there, and Ambrosini went very quietly about anchoring the Milan midfield but still left Gerrard in a sea of open space. This was a strange contrast to how we saw them play against Man Utd last month.
The Liverpool midfield were excellent. Every last one of them. Mascherano was superb in his breaking up of play, constantly nipping the ball from Kaka (who is usually untouchable). Alonso’s passing was as great as ever, Gerrard drove forward in a typical manner and Jermaine Pennant was giving Marek Jankulovski a torrid time on the right wing. Zenden completed the midfield, and whilst not quite as good as Pennant, didn’t really do anything wrong and was later replaced by a rather sluggish Harry Kewell. The 5-man midfield was very effective in neutralising Milan, so hats off to Rafa Benitez. Milan play a very narrow midfield of four almost central players, where Liverpool played two very wide players (Pennant/Zenden) stretching Milan and then they had Gerrard/Alonso/Mascherano playing through the middle (a strong three if ever there was one). Although, whilst winning the midfield battle, such commitment to the middle of the park left Dirk Kuyt isolated up front – and you have to say they never really created the right opportunities with such strength in the middle of the park.
I feel for Liverpool but they should take comfort in what seems will be a very busy summer of transfers. Benitez wants to ‘overhaul’ his side. Last time Liverpool won the Champions League, their summer imports were Reina/Sissoko/Mark Gonzalez (hardly breaking the bank) but now it seems they’re really going to spend money to strengthen. You have to say if they add a top class striker (Villa is being mentioned, but unlikely in my opinion), penetrative wingers (Zenden/Pennant aren’t going to win you trophies of the highest level) and a couple of tweaks elsewhere then there’s no reason they won’t be back in the final again in a year or two.
Entries (RSS)