The View from the Spaghetti Factory (proper redesign coming soon!)

… being, of course, Gaggia Acquisition Syndrome! And thereby hangs a quick public service announcement. The Croydon branch of House of Fraser are doing a special offer on the appropriately named Gaggia Classic, bundling it with an accessory pack for £199, which is an amazing deal. It’s very rare that you see a Classic in the UK for less than £250.

To be honest, I wouldn’t normally have gone for the accessory pack. We really don’t need another six espresso cups and saucers, we could have picked up a milk jug and chocolate shaker anywhere, and I’m sure the info on the Barista Training CD-ROM is pretty standard stuff. However, House of Fraser’s price for the Classic without the accessory pack? £299!

No idea if this offer applies to other branches or John Lewis, but if you’re after a decent coffee machine, I advise you to hurry…

Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, about the possibility of increasing the detention time for terror suspects to 42 days…

If respected listener not enjoy to performance of government, please to be referring back to user manual.

The backlog of unsorted photos has been building up for a few months now, so I decided it was about time I did something with them. A selection from our September trip to Lisbon is now on Flickr…

Lisbon 2007 - Flickr photoset

Aah… sunshine!

The return to work after Christmas and New Year is never particularly easy (although I remember a time when the majority of people worked *between* the two rapidly-expanding winterfests).

When you started your belated summer holiday on Boxing Day, spending almost two weeks on a beautiful archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, where winter daytime temperatures generally stay above 16 degrees, where life is laid-back and everyone is friendly (apart from the miserable cow in the airport tourist tat shop)… well, work becomes a tricky prospect.

And I deserve no sympathy. Here goes…

I’m not sure how much you can credit genetics for your choice of leisure interest, but my obsession with football doesn’t strike me as being particularly unexpected. My grandad, Bill Burnikell, played professionally before WWII (for Lincoln City, Bradford and Aldershot) and later coached teams in Sweden, Chile and Sudan.

Enough general family history, though; this is one of those “isn’t it a small world?” musings. Up at my parents’ place, we’ve got a whole load of grandad-related artefacts, mostly relating to football and/or Sweden. One of them is an issue of “Match”, a Swedish football magazine, dating from 1961.

This particular issue is largely devoted to Degerfors IF, my grandad’s last club in Sweden, who were flying high (especially for a small-town team from Värmland) in the Allsvenskan, Sweden’s top division. It’s great to see his picture in the squad list centrefold feature, but I was surprised to see a promising young player called Tord Grip… now best known as Sven-Göran Eriksson’s deputy at Lazio, England and Manchester City. A browse through the club’s chronology shows that Sven was also briefly a coach at Degerfors.

I’ve scanned a couple of pages so far; more to come soon…

Swedish “Match” magazine, 1961 on Flickr

Dear Father Christmas, please bring me bouncy rabbit mice. I have been very good all year. My regards to your wife and elves. Best wishes, Adrian.

Mysterious mammal caught on film (BBC)

I’ve seen *some* sort of jerboa in a zoo, and it seemed such a fantastic idea… mouse with rabbit ears that hops like a kangaroo! I’ve been through the Gobi desert, too, but I’m guessing jerboas aren’t particularly easy to spot from a train window.

German composer Stockhausen dies (BBC)

Funniest headline on the BBC website this week…

Police hunt for stolen Guinness

The article concludes, “The stolen trailer has since been found at Slane Hill in County Meath. It was empty.”

You don’t say!

My ability to dig out, rebrand and re-pimp old recordings is starting to amaze even me. Looking to refresh the musical selection on my Myspace page, I delved back to 2002 and found a couple of tunes that I’d almost forgotten about. I always assume that I’ll hate any old recordings, but I listened back to these two with quite a fond smile on my face. So, if you go here…

http://www.myspace.com/adrianclarkmusic

… you can listen to “The Reluctant Optimist” and “View from the Retro Kitchenette”. Both are untouched, audio-wise (I didn’t fancy trying to make sense of the old Pro Tools multi-track files in Logic) but I’ve smartened them up with new titles!

Ha! When I wrote that last football post, I had no idea quite how effective the England team would be in sealing McClaren’s fate.

England 2 - 3 Croatia

They were absolutely bloody woeful. Out of the starting eleven, Joe Cole was competent (although nowhere near his full potential) and Peter Crouch was excellent, doing everything that could be expected of him. However, the lone striker in a 4-5-1 formation is supposed to be knocking balls down to the attacking midfielders, and they just weren’t there. The introduction of Beckham added a touch of class (as well as the necessary support for Crouch in a more comfortable 4-4-2) while Defoe contributed a little extra, not least earning the penalty.

Every other player was either under par or utterly incompetent. Croatia must have wondered whether they’d mixed up their flights to Skopje and London… while Macedonia battled hard for their win, England played like international minnows, leaving Croatia players to run in acres of space and firing loose balls into dangerous positions. This was not a difficult qualification group for a major football nation, despite the improved form of Israel and Russia, nor can England blame bad luck or dodgy refereeing. To drop thirteen points in ten games is inexcusable. Croatia looked good, but barely seemed to be trying. England created their own downfall.

As I write this, McClaren has not yet resigned or been sacked, but it’s almost inevitable that he’ll be clearing his desk at some point during the next couple of days (if not, there’s something *really* wrong at the FA). Intriguingly, the BBC reveals that Marcello Lippi, former trophy-hogging coach of Juventus and Italy, has turned down the job of manager at Birmingham City. If I was in a senior position at the FA, I think I’d interpret this as a sign. There’s your next England manager, right there. Not only is he hugely successful, he also smokes cigars. On the touchline! How much cooler can a manager be? The man’s a legend… let’s get him!

(Oh, and if you’re on Facebook, join my Lippi for England group)