Jack Wilshere’s injury lay-off could be good for England in Euro 2012

It’s no secret that some of Arsenal’s woes this season have hinged on the fact that their young talisman has been injured for much of the season.

In terms of for Arsenal, his lay-off has been detrimental, leaving them having to acquire lesser talented players in the likes of Mikel Arteta in the summer to deputise.

Arteta is a solid enough player, but he’s never going to win you a trophy.

However, looking towards Euro 2012 in the summer, if Arsenal can actually enable Wilshere to recover with a remainder of the season left, blooding the young star in the process, England could benefit in the summer.

A fresh, zesty Wilshere, playing at his pomp, roaming around the field playing angled passes and drifting past opponents, could be instrumental in an England team who are all too often exposed for playing in straight lines.

Wilshere is the kind of player who can create a unity within the now-popular central midfield trio.

It sounds simple, but a defensive midfielder; with Michael Carrick further enforcing his position, and Scott Parker having placed himself in a great position; and an attacking midfielder, who would still have to be Steven Gerrard when fit, requires a lynchpin, all rounded player.

Wilshere can ghost past people at a jog, very similarly to the Barcelona starlets and, like the Catalonia stars, can prod through delicate passes which can disect a back-line.

Wenger may not have always been the England team’s biggest hope, but, if he can get Wilshere to a point where he is ready to train fully and having played games, we may have a huge asset to the team added, in the best possible circumstances.

It’s been long said that players are too tired and ‘worn out’ by the summer. One benefit to Wilshere having been missing for so long is that he could, could, be back to fitness and fresh by the summer.

Englishman's guide to New England - Day 3

American shopping can knock your socks off. Something which has really stumped me is that dollars aren't pounds; they're less; a third less.

So when something is the same in pounds as it is in dollars, it's a third less.

On good advise, we went to the discount outlets just outside Boston. All top designer brands, all last season, all dirt cheap.

Sounds good to me.

All this for £70. Not bad.

Englishmen's guide to New England - Day 2

Portion Size

Now I touched on this yesterday. [http://theblackcountryprophet.blogspot.com/2012/03/englishmans-guide-to-new-england-day-1.html] Portion sizes in New England are something of a feat. For a humble englishman, who is normally proud of his eating prowess, where eating a large Domino's Pizza is a matter of normallity, meals are something of an enigma - 2 parters, sharers.

One plate = 2 people?

That's unpossible.

Here's some massive, luminous American stuff.

I've tapped into an American tradition, however. The old 'doggy bag', which is actually more of a polypropy-whatchamacallit box, has been used to great effect, transporting some of New England's finest 'Lobster Pie'.

It seems that you can take the Wolverhampton man out of the Black Country, but the Blackcountry is ever present in him.

Advertising

Coach Carter is a good film, no? Well it is when you are able to watch it without Amica Insurance rearing their ugly consumer heads every six minutes.

6 minutes of programming equals 5 minutes of advertising.

I had to stay up for 3 hours to watch that damn film. Knowing that I had fallen exactly into their trap of being hooked on a suspense-filled moment, was the worst thing. I knew what was happening and still filed off the edge of the cliff in true Lemming style.

But, like all true Brits, I stood in that visual queue, waited patiently, and thanked them for their programming even though I was hollow inside.


Consumerism sucks. (How American is that ya'll ?)

Here is a typical American advertising format:

"Hi, I'm from [insert faceless corporation name here]. [Smile inanely] We're great. We provide [this service]. Here is an actor we've paid to pretend to be a contented customer to tell you that we are also great."

"Hi, I'm a contented customer." Cut to another contented customer.

"I'm also content with their service."

Then, if it's a drug commercial, masses of disclaimers so you can't sue if your liver falls off due to its usage.

Salem

Why is New England called New England, I hear you say.

Well, it's where the Puritans orginally arrived from their pilgrimage out of Plymouth, England, so what did they do first, named it Plymouth.

Years later, some girls heard some stories of withcraft and started damning people for witchcraft which the puritanical people wholely believed and executed the accusees.

So we went to Salem, where occult people, who looked very much like greebos, were selling cheesy, withcraft related items.

It seemed like they were bagging up soil, labelling it 'Love Potion' and selling it for 15 dollars.

Great system!

Here's me as a witch:

Englishman's Guide to New England - Day 1

The Puritan settlers in 1670 something were a creative bunch: "Wow, so glad to be away from England. What shall we call this place?"
"How about... New England!"
"Great idea!"

It's a little disconcerting wondering around this different land and finding Worcester, Northampton and, most strikingly, Portsmouth. It's bad enough that there's one of these dire places, never mind two.

Wondering around Boston we found a fully dressed Pilgrim with real sideburns. That's dedication to his job calling. And there is the Cheers bar - where everybody knows your name... or is too rushed to bring you your burger but I don't think David Angell could fit that in the lyrics.

*Clinks glass, 'Cheers' - *face palm.

Automobiles

Cars are all big. They just don't do hatchbacks. Going from driving a 206 to some mammoth saloon is a bit of a shock for this little Englander, and that's not to mention the free-for-all that ensues at any cross roads.

You don't carry an insurance history out here - so who cares if you smash up somebodies Chevvy wildly pulling out of a junction?

Fashion

Caps, they love caps. But the most amazing thing about the whole she-bang is that they have no concept of what footwear is appropriate with what attire. There was a woman wondering around in a beat up pair of Nike Shocks with a full suit on the way to a business meeting.

Different.

Sugar Rush

Everything is an E-number. For breakfast you have, admittedly amongst other things, Fruit Loops - E-numbers and sugar with milk - or these gargantuan waffles with whipped cream, syrup and whatever toppings you can find. I think I nearly developed diabetes by looking at this one guy, who we've called 'Tank', demolishing a waffle 'creation'.

More to follow...

Phil Jones needs to be dropped for his own good

Long gone, it seems, are the early days of the season where Phil Jones was marauding down the left, right… well, practically all over the pitch.

Manchester United this season have certainly hit rocky patches, especially within that inexperienced defence and after riding out initial Premier League results, United have found it hard to keep clean sheets

Phil Jones, at 20, has a lot of promise in the game but playing constantly gives him little time to reflect on his mistakes and rectify them through training.

(And seriously, when did these ‘young promising’ players become younger than me. I still remember the days when I was 14, saying to myself ‘it’s alright - he’s breaking through to the Utd. first team at 17, I’ve got time.’)

It’s a tried and tested method. Well, it’s Alex Ferguson’s method to blood the youngsters gradually, giving them time to ascend into being a first team regular.

Jones, however, has become an ever present but his games seem to be increasingly littered with misplaced passes, or having an opposition player slip past him.

There’s obviously a time when players come of age and step up to become first team regulars. (That’s the way progressing through a football team works, really.)

But that time is not yet, playing in all the pivotal matches for the biggest club in the world.

He's certainly got talent, but it is all too long ago now that he was being touted as a future England captain.

SkyDrive is ruining my life.

Ever heard the old mantra, ‘if it’s broke don’t fix it’?

I have: it’s true.

Hotmail’s a great service isn’t it? Well it was. I think myself and the entire f’ing world was happy with being able to send files by attaching them to an email and clicking send. It was all gravy. 

We all knew where we were.

Now, some Smart Alec, (I presume they’re called Alec as they always seem to be), has decided that no. 2012 needs some fancy new file sharing system and so the creation of Sky Drive.

This file sharing system seems to be lacking, lacking in the ability to share files. ‘SkyDrive has crashed’ is the product’s byline or it f’ing well should be.

It must have been born from a conversation between two Oxbridge graudatues who wanted to shit-up communications. 

‘Hey Tarquin, want to develop a revolutionary crashing file sharing system to annoy the plebs?’

‘Bernard, you read my mind.’

Then there was obviously an Alec involved somewhere whose sole purpose was to annoy me.

Job done.

Some slected comments from http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/3704.aspx:

Howard: Although its been a while since their comments, my sentiments align quite closely with Debbie's & Karen's. I tried sending a 2-page narrative that simply disappeared, and I have yet to find it. If this is all SkyDrive can do, KEEP IT and let us go back to what we had. Thanks, but NO THANKS!!!

Gary: Skydrive is an absalute JOKE. They claim thatyou can upload 200 photos at once, Lies.I was happy when I could fire off 50 at once, microsoft was ahead of the game and people like me were happy.Now I spend all morning trying to up load pics only to find that when sent, they aint got there. And why when I send some thing the whole world can see it on this stupid slow "upgraded?" facility Whats that about?? World leaders in frustrating thier customers, Can any one tell me of an alterniyive to microsoft, I hate using this company,
IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT [sic]

Karen, who is particularly animated: I WANT my old way of sending out resumes and not this skydrive crap. I have been trying all afternoon to send them out and they won't attach and keep saying folders empty. How can you screw with us when jobs are so sacred and hard to find. I have searched and searched on how to get my old hotmail page back to no avail. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT to know how to undo the damage you've done with "sky drive: