Dan Palmer

Wednesday, 28 November 2007

Leader: Ebbsfleet United

Football has seen its fair share of nonsense over the years but the takeover of Ebbsfleet United by the website MyFootballClub must surely take the cake.

Twenty thousand people have paid £35 each to form the takeover fund to buy the club.

They will all become a 'part owner' of Ebbsfleet, and will vote on every major issue, from team selection to player transfers.

Club manager Liam Daish will see his job title downgraded to 'head coach'.

In theory, giving the fans control in this manner is a nice idea. But allowing people to play Football Manager for real is surely doomed to failure.

For instance, allowing members to pick the team will clearly cause numerous difficulties. Daish will apparently brief members on what he believes the team selection should be.

But surely opposing managers will sign up, see this brief and then have a massive advantage ahead of the game?

Similarly, asking members to vote on transfers will play into their rival's hands. Other clubs will be able to tie up deals while Ebbsfleet are still putting them to the vote.

Most importantly, there are the existing fans who love their club and don't want it turned into an experiment.

For years they have been coming week in, week out and know more about the club than anyone.

We wonder how many of the subscribers will fail to pay again next season. The money would dry up and once again in football, the fans would be the victims.

TV Review: Heroes

Crikey, is this really the twentieth episode?

We have all been so mesmerised by this excellent series that time has just flown by.

Which is ironic really, because in tonight's offering on BBC2, time, erm, flew by!

The writers ripped up the rulebook tonight by taking us five years into the future where the fated bomb detonated and blew New York to smithereens.

We got the chance to see the characters we know and love in a completely new light, and this provided a refreshing and original change.

Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) once again steals the show. Usually wonderfully excitable, he is now a wanted terrorist and master of the sword. Oka portrays both characters superbly and puts in a brilliant performance.

Far from being one of those lame clip shows, this episode still provides the levels of excitement and emotional pathos we are used too.

The final scene, when present day Hiro sees his future self killed, is as shocking and powerful as anything we have seen so far.

And when Sylar (Zachary Quinto) finally manages to kill Claire Bennett (Hayden Panettiere), it provides a chilling vision of what our heroes may face in the future.

Time travel is a tricky subject, leading to some confusion as we try to link past and future.

But in the main this gloomy look at 'what might be' sets us up perfectly for the three part finale which begins next week. We now know what happens if it all goes pear-shaped....

Monday, 26 November 2007

Personal Column: The Scots

So am I the only Englishman who was happy to see Scotland crash out of the European Championships?

All week I have been hearing things like: "It's such a shame isn't it?" and "I wanted them to make it."

Why is this? Do you think that anyone was upset north of the border after our abject defeat to Croatia?

Wasn't that Andy Murray in a Paraguay shirt shortly before our World Cup opener?

And the thing is, that is how it should be. I want competition between England and Scotland. I want the jokes and the banter. I want the passion and the hatred. And above all I want to smugly bask myself in schadenfreude when they once again fail to reach a major tournament.

What I don't want is some sort of cuddly United Kingdom lovefest.

Scotland are our rivals, our biggest foes. And quite simply, we shouldn't want them to win.

And as an England supporter sitting in England, I want the focus of the media coverage to be, erm, England.

It is infuriating when live feeds from the England camp are interrupted to bring us some pub in Stranraer that had been decked out in tartan.

Perhaps bringing back the home nations will revitalise tensions and restore some sanity.

I once witnessed some Scotland fans in kilts chanting 'Italy' after the Italians beat us 1-0. And when Christian Panucci's ninetieth minute header floated into the back of the net, I rejoiced in chanting the same.

Maroon 5 @ Notts Arena for NG

“If there are any critics here, go f**k yourself!” announces Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine midway through their set at the Nottingham Arena tonight. Well, that's just charming isn't it? As the crowd roars in approval, I suddenly feel like the pantomime villain as heads turn to look back at the guy sitting down with a notepad.

“What this? Nah, I'm not a reviewer, I'm just er, taking drinks orders!"

Luckily I make it through the night without being lynched, but perhaps this review should be written under a fake name to avoid any reprisals? Devine's outburst came just after he said: “We're not liked here” and I'm afraid that I will have to add my own insults to what is apparently a growing list.

Die-hard fans of the Los Angeles five piece clearly had a good time but for me the performance was just a bit flat. Too many songs tonight dragged on unnecessarily, so much so that it began to feel like we had gate crashed a jamming session at times. Slower numbers fizzled out to nothing and just seemed a bit dull. It was the first night of their UK tour, so maybe the lads will need some time to get into the swing of things. But I for one would have been pretty disappointed to have forked out thirty-odd quid for tonight's performance.

It didn't help that crowd favourites Harder to Breathe and It Makes Me Wonder came relatively early in the set, leaving big gaps in the middle with nothing to get really excited about. Even This Love, their big tune, failed to get things pumping as I might have thought. There were high points but these were disappointingly few and far between in a sea of mediocrity. There is no denying that the guys are top class musicians, with Levine and James Valentine wowing the audience at times with their skills on their guitars.

Crowd interaction was good with Levine instructing the fans to wave their mobile phones aloft, creating a sky of shiny white light. An intimate version of She Will Be Loved during the encore was also a highlight and Levine's vocal range was pretty impressive. It's just that a lot of the set simply seemed like filler while we waited for the good bits.

There was a lack of oomph and the gig didn't provide the levels of excitement and entertainment that you would expect in an arena. It also finished disappointingly early at just after ten, and I wonder how many paying customers left feeling a tad ripped off. So I'm going to put 'must do better' on the Maroon 5 report card I'm afraid. And I'm also going to give Mr Levine detention for swearing at journalists. Naughty boy.

Red Or Dead: Dan Palmer

Seeing Red: Chris Wray-McCann

http://www.ng-magazine.com/Diary/Music/Dont_Look_Back_In_Anger:_NG_Magazine_reviews_Maroon_5/