I went on a trip to St Andrews last weekend and took lots of photos; I’ve finally got round to uploading them. I just wish that the Flickr Uploadr wasn’t the flaming piece of crap it is; not only is it slow and prone to crashing, but simple things like re-ordering pictures before uploading them are beyond its abilities.

Still, never mind, I got them all online eventually. Which means you can all enjoy the worst shop name pun, ever. Happy groaning.

I’ve just noticed that about half a dozen blog posts had been mysteriously taken away from the site; somehow their status (which was set to “publish”) got blanked out. I’ve sorted out the problem now, but I’m not sure how this happened, or when - I only noticed because some spammer was using the post IDs to send spam comments. It may have just been me, changing the status by accident when editing them, or it could be something more sinister, i.e. a bug with WordPress. Anyone else had a similar problem?

So I saw Serenity at the weekend (warning, some spoilerage ahead). And I thought it was quite a good film: the plot is coherent and keeps moving, the dialogue is well-written and rarely plods, the effects are nicely done and the actors are pretty good.

But I don’t think it quite gets the gushing plaudits everyone has been giving it (such as these). It is already #125 on IMDb’s top 250. Yes it’s good, but it has its flaws. The political allegory is simplistic and in-your-face. The romantic subplots are cliché from start to finish (X and Y each holding a torch for the other without realising the other’s own feelings; P and Q have split up but Q has been longing to get back with P, although she doesn’t know it).

And the characters…. well, it illustrates the problem with TV series spinoffs. While regular fans of Firefly will be more than happy with the film, an outsider who has hardly watched any of it (like me) will take the film will see it and find them quite lacking. There’s too many of them, it’s tricky to empathise with them, to get a handle on any sort of development through the film. The only character of real interest was the nameless assassin (played quite excellently by Chiwetel Ejiofor), the dark, amoral but also highly moral killer - which isn’t surprising, since he was not in the regular series and so the film has to work a bit more to paint his picture.

This is pretty much endemic to any TV series spin-off (e.g. the Star Trek movies), with so much characterisation covered by the original series, the films can take it as a given. Fine for fanboys, not so good for the rest of us. To Joss Whedon’s credit, he has remembered this and made the rest of the movie so good that the layman can still find plenty to enjoy - even though I found myself not caring whether Dr. Tam died or not at the end. Go see it and enjoy it, just don’t expect it to be a stand-alone classic.

A couple of excellent rants over at Chicken Yoghurt, plus a generally jaded cynicism about anything the present government tries to do, have got me thinking: where are we heading?

So forgive me, as I indulge in some speculation over what’s going to happen over the next few years. The health and education systems will continually implode as the continual reform dictated to from on high distracts from any long-term improvement. The lack of coherent transport or housing policies will make living in and moving around Britain ever more expensive and inconvenient. The clampdown on civil liberties turns out to be quite ineffective at combatting terrorism. The long-term rise in oil prices and the US economic slowdown post-Katrina will hit the economy, and the ability to invest in public services with it. The toll of a ‘flu epidemic will not only cost the nation fiscally, but sap public morale. Not all of these are explicitly New Labour’s fault, but it doesn’t matter; very little has improved under New Labour’s tinkering, and in the electorate’s eyes, plenty has got worse. By 2009 or 2010, they will be miserable and ready for a change.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair has insisted on as Prime Minister right up until the end of his term, a move which not only stagnates his government but will give Gordon Brown no time to effect any leadership of his own prior to the election. Meanwhile, the Tories have elected Cameron as leader (narrowly), and his appeal to the floating fed up voter is enough that Labour could lose the election. By the time Blair actually does step down, Brown has taken a good hard look at the mess he’s going to have to inherit as PM (if he gets elected) and goes fuck that, I’m off, and joins the IMF or the UN instead to fight global poverty. The Blairites are secretly thrilled, especially when Milburn is elected as Blair’s successor as Labour leader, but are not thrilled when the electorate opt for Cameron, on the basis that he and Milburn sound exactly the same, but they want a change, so they go for the other guy. The only thing that saves Labour from total defeat is bias within electoral boundaries - we end up with a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives having the most seats. And then… well, my crystal ball goes murky at that point. But a Labour-Conservative coalition wouldn’t be a totally crazy solution to that problem…

I feel slightly bad talking about a subject as trivial as football, when much worse things have happened over the past few days. But this has been brewing in my mind since Saturday afternoon, and I need to get it out.

England qualified for the World Cup on Saturday. Not that you’d have known it. Despite qualifying with a match spare, the knives are still out for the hapless Swedish coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson. England may win their group, or be one of the best runners-up, but that will not satisfy the curiously strong sense of entitlement to success that the average England fan possesses. The Swede is under continual pressure to perform, and after a couple of duff performances. There are calls for his resignation in the gutter press, and disgruntled fans have taken to lobbing bricks through his window. Sven is at the mercy of expectations of a mind-bogglingly unreasonable nature.

Are these expectations unreasonable? We have a long and proud history, right? Well, no, we don’t. England didn’t play in a World Cup until the fourth tournament in 1950 (after falling out with FIFA back in the day, they missed out on the first three). They didn’t exactly storm the scene then - instead they promptly lost 1-0 to the United States. Allegedly, the British press, thinking there was a misprint on the wires reported it as 10-1. It was a sign of things to come: failure dressed up as success. England continued to struggle, as exemplified by Ferenc Puskas et al. beating them 7-1 in Budapest in 1954, and would get no further than the quarter-finals in 1954, 1958 and 1962.

Even England’s brief period of glory, the one that we still talk about, 41 years later, was contentious. In the 1966 World Cup final, England’s third goal against West Germany has never been conclusively proven to have crossed the line, and the fourth occurred as a pitch invasion was starting. However, at least then Ramsey’s side had the vindication of coming third in the 1968 European Championships, and being the only side that gave 1970 World Cup winners Brazil a good run for their money in that tournament. But even that didn’t last; England only got as far as the last eight in Euro ‘72, and after that it was dark, dark days. The side didn’t qualify at all for the 1974 or 1978 World Cups - for most of that decade England was off the world footballing map.

In comparison to those dark days, Eriksson has done quite well - three tournaments aimed for, three got. Only one competitive loss in qualification (to Northern Ireland), and two more in tournament finals (France in 2004 & Brazil in 2002). Not bad for a middling European team over five years. In terms of performances, Eriksson has a better win ratio than any England coach since Ron Greenwood, except for Glenn Hoddle (another coach unfairly singled out for attack despite an excellent competitive record). Simply put, he is one of the best managers England have ever had.

Not that you’d know it. Of special interest is the fact that in terms of wins, Eriksson outdoes both Venables and Robson, the two recent coaches most lauded by the press. They perhaps forget that Robson’s England side were inconsistent and overrated: though they were unlucky in Mexico ‘86, they were an utter disaster in Euro ‘88. While in Italia ‘90, supposedly England’s second finest hour, they were far from the lionised side that our rewritten history recounts. After a turgid, draw-ridden group stage, England were outplayed by Belgium but won with a last-minute goal, and then needed a dodgy penalty against Cameroon to get to the semi-finals. Without Lineker and Gascoigne, that tournament would have been a failure too, but luckily for us we had West Germany to knock us out on penalties. In one fell swoop, the story of an average side that had a couple of lucky matches could be rewritten as a heroic adventure of all-conquering men who were cut down in their prime by the Hun (no other side, not even Argentina, would have made it the story it was). Paul Gascoigne’s tears betrayed the human side of the glory, and his youth promised a new era of success. Except that it wasn’t glory, nor the start of a new era. Unlike in 1966, 1990 England’s luck soon ran out, and under Robson’s successor, Graham Taylor, Euro 92 was a disaster and England didn’t even reach the ‘94 World Cup.

In fairness Robson did at least make a half-decent side, even though they were never the world beaters they were made out to be. Venables, however, was a mediocre manager who just happened to get very lucky. He had one tournament, Euro 96, for which his England side didn’t have to qualify. They played in front of a home crowd, and yet they still won only two of their five matches. In one they had a missed McAllister penalty to thank, and the other was against a Dutch side riven with internal dissent and accusations of racism. In the quarter finals, Spain scored a perfectly good goal but it was ruled offside; it finished 0-0 and England won in the shootout. Then in the semi-finals, once again the Germans came to England’s rescue by knocking us out on penalties, thus turning an overrated side of distinctly average players into heroes once again.

Out of such stuff fairytales are made, and the fairytale in this case is that England ever were a footballing superpower. Aside from the brief period of international domination between 1966 and 1970 (or thereabouts), this has never been the case. A telling statistic can be gleaned if we look at England’s performances against the “big six” sides since the 1970 World Cup - Argentina, Brazil, France, (West) Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. All eight World Cup finals since 1970 have been played between two of these six sides. In the 28 competitive international matches England has played against these teams since 1970, they have only won six. None of those wins came between 1982 and 1996, and before Sven came round, that number stood at four. Laughably, England fans consider Germany, a side that has won three World Cups and three European Championships, to be their biggest “rivals”, when England are actually little more than relative minnows.

Eriksson took what was a terrible and moribund England, worked wonders to make them into a half-decent side (as anyone who compared England’s 1-0 loss to Germany in 2000 with the 5-1 victory in 2001 can clearly see). He’s had a bit of luck - a few world class talents (Beckham, Rooney) have appeared during his time, although these have been mitigated by the lack of a decent goalkeeper or left winger. His good work has brought England to the class they deserve - a half-decent European team. Our continual inability or unwillingness to set up a national sporting infrastructure like Germany’s or Australia’s means that we will never be able to produce the quality of a side that will consistently be the fear of the world, yet we still think above our station.

England fans are deluded if they think the current side is filled with world class players. There’s a couple of good players, and the rest of the first XI are OK, but they aren’t exactly in demand on the Continent. How many top European clubs do you see clamouring for English internationals? To make things worse, England are desperately short of options once the first XI are injured; Ashley Cole’s injury required Jamie Carragher to fill in, badly, at left back on Saturday. Gary Neville, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard are all similarly difficult to replace.

Fully fit, and with a bit of luck, England can beat a top class side. On a bad day and with a couple of key players missing, a crap team like Northern Ireland can nick a result. In the long run, they’ll go some distance, but never get close to winning anything. Supporters of sides of a similar calibre (Sweden, Belgium, Poland etc.) would be content with a good, but not quite good enough, kind of side that might occasionally impress, and qualifying for the World Cup a match early would be seen as an achievement to be proud of. But not the English.

Of course, there is the question - why do we need this delusion, and the continual revisionism it demands? I’m not totally sure. Maybe it is to make up for our diminishing stature internationally; whether you take the view we’re the poodle of America, or the EU is encroaching on our shores, England/Britain is getting ever littler either way - we need to find any way we can of feeling big. Maybe it’s for more sporting reasons - because we invented the game (but then, we haven’t done the same in the cricket, up until this year’s Ashes), or because we can’t get over 1966 (which bodes ill for our rugby team in 40 years’ time) - football must want to come home, right? I’m not sure which explanation’s better, to be honest. It could just be some freakish national psychosis, peculiar only to the English (neither the Welsh nor the Scottish foist similar expectations on their national sides).

Compounding Eriksson’s problem is that thanks to circumstances elsewhere, expectations are even more unreasonably high than usual. England’s rugby players have won the World Cup, our cricketers hold the Ashes. In club football, Liverpool are currently European Cup holders (albeit with very few English players in the side). Unless you’re 50 or over, the FIFA World Cup is the one big prize we have no memories of winning. Sven faces an impossible task - to live up to the expectations of a nation deluded by its own footballing ability and international stature. Nothing can save him, nothing at all.

Unless Germany knock us out on penalties, that is.

I have been spending too much time indoors of late. The weather in London at the moment is grey but it’s not freezing, nor is the light too bad and depressing. Incidentally, I was momentarily enraged by a BBC weatherman yesterday saying that”unfortunately” England was covered with cloud while Scotland got the sunshine, which was a pleasing reminder that my year in Edinburgh has left some impression on me.

The combination of grey but light conditions mean that some of the bleaker, more crumbly parts of east London are given just the right look to them. This includes formerly elegant but now derelict buildings, like the Plaistow YMCA (which currently does nothing more than carry some mobile phone masts), as well as the more fascinating old signs which used to be painted directly onto walls, that still ‘haunt’ some older houses today (e.g. - there are more to see with the “wall” tag of the Flickr Faded Signage group).

I actually went out to try and photograph some of the latter today, in black and white, but I’d forgotten to charge my camera battery and it died on me before I got anything decent. I fear by the time I get round to going again it will be too dark and rainy/snowy for them to come out right.

The other fascinating thing I’ve found around is that many local businesses have signs up that are so old they still retain the “01″ London code on their phone numbers (which dates them to at least 1990)To be fair, given that London has changed phone code three times in the past fifteen years (01 -> 081 -> 0181 -> 020 8), you can kinda understand why they might not want to go all the bother (not to mention the cost) of redoing the sign each time. Some little bit of me would like to start up a Flickr group, devoted just to signs with obsolete phone numbers, but I fear that I am alone in thinking so, and it would be a disgracefully nerdy thing to do.

Right, that’s it. I’ve been using Thunderbird’s RSS reader to read my RSS feeds, but it’s slow and the subscription management interface is crap. Worse still, it now insists on continually re-downloading posts I’ve already read, so I end up with unread duplicates within each feed. I’ve tried an extension to delete them, but it doesn’t work. The bug has been noted, but no solution is in the offing.

I’m sick of having to put up with this mess, so fuck it. Can anyone out there recommend a better RSS reader? What I’m looking for is a proper local client, not a web service (so I can read messages offline) which is free (preferably in both senses of the word) and fast. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Last night I watched the BBC’s tribute to the late Ronnie Barker, which included highlights of his past work, and tributes from former colleagues.

Aside: although some of the one-liners and sketches on The Two Ronnies - four candles, answering the question before last, etc. - were classics, I think nostalgia has obscured the fact that a lot of the show’s humour was either too cosy or dated. I’m thinking of the silly music/costume numbers, or the “Britain taken over by women” sketch series - funny for its time, but not something that would be get commissioned today. For my money, Porridge, and to a lesser extent Open All Hours were much better vehicles for Barker’s talent, as much of the humour still has currency today.

Anyway, it struck me as I was watching the show that “Blimey, it’s a bit soon after he died to be showing this”. Issues of taste aside (I’m sure the BBC did clear it with his family and that they approved), it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to realise that the programme had been recorded some time before his death, which made all the tributes from his friends, speaking in the past tense, a little weird to me. In fact, I think they thought the same, because a couple of them slipped occasionally and referred to him in the present tense. It must be awfully hard for them to have had to talk about their friend, who was still alive (and may well have been quite ill), as if he was already a goner.

While pre-writing obituaries is standard fare (as seen when they are occasionally released by accident) and fine for preparedness sake’, as they are entirely dispassionate, to pre-record tributes from his nearest and dearest makes me uncomfortable. I’d rather they just stuck on a past episode of Porridge and do a proper tribute evening six months down the line, once everyone has had time to reflect on his passing, rather than go to all the effort of a preparing a polished programme for the evening after his death.