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Saturday, 5 November 2016
Wednesday, 2 November 2016
MARTIN SAMUEL: Bunny dancing and selfies at Manchester United... what must Sir Alex make of it all?
MARTIN SAMUEL: Bunny dancing and selfies at Manchester United... what must Sir Alex make of it all?
What is the obsession this United team has with selfies and social media?
Had Fergie remained, he would have increasingly felt a man out of time
Ferguson was never one for players whose brand outweighed their performances on the pitch
The image of Jose Mourinho having to tell Eric Bailly not to take pictures in the directors’ box sums up the vacuous nature of the modern dressing room
The ‘Pogbunny’ no doubt attracted considerable attention, as desired. But wasn’t Pogba’s football supposed to do that?
The look on Jose Mourinho’s face says it all. He is turning around, scowling in irritation, his hand raised in a universally understood gesture. Stop.
And so it has come to this. The Manchester United manager papped by one of his own players. What is the obsession this United team has with selfies and social media? Can’t they see the league table? Don’t they know they are eighth?
There are all manner of theories around why Sir Alex Ferguson decided it was time to step away from football. What is certainly true is that, had he remained, he would have increasingly felt a man out of time.
Ferguson wrote a few books, but he wasn’t one for ceaselessly documenting every step of his day. The image of Mourinho having to tell Eric Bailly not to take pictures as he sat in the directors’ box, having been sent to the stands against Burnley, sums up the vacuous nature of the modern dressing room.
Jose Mourinho observes Eric Bailly attempting to take a selfie in the directors' box
A stony-faced Mourinho orders the injured defender not to take the picture
United, and Mourinho, are fighting for their lives right now. Forget about isolation in The Lowry, another season outside the Champions League would be the real disaster, and it is one that is becoming altogether more feasible with a quarter of the campaign gone.
Finding no way through against Burnley, Mourinho’s frustration was compounded by being sent off for confronting referee Mark Clattenburg at half-time. How did Bailly see that as a photo opportunity? How could he be so unaware that he stuck a camera in his manager’s face the week he complained of being under siege from paparazzi every time he left his Manchester hotel base?
Mourinho, obviously, was concentrating on the game. Bailly should have been, too. Yes he is injured until after Christmas — but, really, was there nothing he could learn from simply watching the match? Nothing he might pick up about his new team-mates, nothing that would be of use when he returns? What about input in post-match discussions? United are in crisis. Get your head out of your Twitter feed and make a contribution.
Not that Bailly is unique. Remember Arsenal’s celebration selfies after beating Leicester last season, before a catastrophic slump helped hand the trophy to the most unlikely champions of all time?
Aaron Ramsey posted this picture on Twitter after Arsenal beat Leicester in February
The modern player has strangely skewed priorities. Take Paul Pogba. The world’s most expensive footballer has had, by most estimations, an ordinary time since arriving at Old Trafford. He was never going to make the goalscoring impact of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo but for £89million, United had good reason to expect an upgrade on Tom Cleverley. Instead, Pogba has been largely anonymous by his standards, insipid in a team desperate for momentum.
This can happen. Michael Essien became a monster in Chelsea’s midfield but was disappointing in his first year. So was Didier Drogba. The relentless physicality of the Premier League can be a shock, even to a player of Pogba’s stature.
He should still come good. In his current form, however, it might be an idea to lower the profile until he truly has something to advertise. Yet there was Pogba, on Instagram on Monday, cavorting in a Hallowe’en scary rabbit costume for his 10million followers.
What would Ferguson have made of that? He was smart enough to know that young footballers needed to let off steam and the football world he grew up in had changed, but certain principles remained. He was never one for players whose brand outweighed their performances on the pitch.
The ‘Pogbunny’, as the Instagram creature was known, was intended as harmless fun and no doubt attracted considerable attention, as desired. But wasn’t Pogba’s football supposed to do that?
Paul Pogba's bunny suit is making the headlines but his football isn't
He stars in a new adidas commercial, purporting to show his evolution as a footballer. There he is playing keepy-up with a melon in the market, annoying the neighbours by kicking a ball against a wall at home, on the school playing field, dazzling team-mates in training, finally performing the impossible at Old Trafford.
‘I am here to create,’ is the slogan. But create what? A Pogbunny? In the ad, Pogba is the name on everybody’s lips and the Instagram account feeds that commercial entity, those hits. But are real people, not actors, talking about Pogba’s football now? Only when discussing what £89m buys these days.
Maybe Jose Mourinho wonders that, too. He has time to kill at his hotel. If he follows social media he will have seen Pogba dancing, Pogba at play, Pogba on holiday, Pogba with the stars, Pogba touring the planet’s coolest destinations and biggest A-list events, Pogba modelling, Pogba the meme. What he won’t have greatly noticed is Pogba the world-record transfer, Pogba the match-winner, Pogba the game-changer.
Ferguson would surely demand the other Pogbas were reined in, until the Pogba he had paid for arrived.
Wayne Rooney said that when the United team bus was attacked outside West Ham’s ground last season his first act, as captain, was to tell the players not to post any material from inside the coach. Be dignified, this is Manchester United and we’re here to win a football match, was his message.
Too late. Jesse Lingard’s faux- terrified footage was already up, running and everywhere. United’s players looked as if they thought it was all a giggle; they lost and did not qualify for the Champions League. #Fail.
If even Rooney is made to feel old, if Mourinho occasionally despairs, one wonders what Ferguson, the elder statesman, makes of it all. Probably he thinks he’s just as well looking on these days. Old Trafford is no country for old men. Not now the bunnies have come home to roost.
Sir Alex Ferguson exchanges pleasantries with Mourinho back in 2005
Ferguson (with Wayne Rooney, right) would likely struggle to fathom the modern footballer
Conte pulled off a miracle with Moses
There have been some impressive transformations this season. Pep Guardiola has greatly improved Raheem Sterling, Jurgen Klopp has worked wonders with Roberto Firmino, James Milner and Jordan Henderson, Arsene Wenger has made a serious centre forward out of Alexis Sanchez.
Yet, if it proves more than a stopgap, nothing is as remarkable as Antonio Conte’s conversion of Victor Moses to a right wing back. Not least as it has run concurrently with a system that has made a proper central defender of David Luiz.
The metamorphosis of Victor Moses under Antonio Conte has been a remarkable feat
Why FIFA’s ‘best’ will never be good enough
Sometimes you just have to marvel at the chutzpah of FIFA. This week they announced the creation of a new football awards ceremony. FIFA’s ‘The Best’ it will be called. As in: FIFA’s ‘The Best’ Men’s Player 2016, FIFA’s ‘The Best’ Men’s Coach...
As if FIFA should judge ‘The Best’ of anything. Donald Trump might as well announce he is giving an annual award for sophisticated behaviour around women. The Donald Trump ‘Hello Ladies’ Roving Palme d’Or. First recipient: Ched Evans.
‘The definitive accolade’ FIFA president Gianni Infantino called these new prizes — like his organisation would know. Consider FIFA’s recent judgments. Is Russia ‘the best’ location for a World Cup in 2018? Then, is Qatar in 2022? Was it Infantino’s best idea to accept lifts in private jets owned by those two countries, or was he left as horribly compromised as his predecessors?
Will his 48-team World Cup be the best, too, or will it be as watered down and inferior as his expanded European Championship? And are FIFA the best body to run football?
Can we not find an organisation that hasn’t had dozens of senior executives arrested over bribes totalling millions? Wouldn’t it be best if FIFA just disbanded and we started again — with men who did not have ties to previous, discredited, regimes?
Gianni Infantino strikes a relaxed pose before taking in an Omani match last week
Men such as Spanish federation president and FIFA executive committee member Angel Maria Villar Llona, whose organisation was last week shamed by sports minister Miguel Cardenal over a donation of roughly £200,000 the government made to build a soccer school in Haiti, following the devastating earthquake in 2010.
Cardenal is asking for the money back because, according to Spanish media reports, only about a fifth of it reached the impoverished region and the rest had been spent on other activities with the school project uncompleted.
‘We have begun a refund process and have requested the Federation return the funds,’ said Cardenal. ‘With the checks we have carried out, the objectives which we agreed to award the subsidy have not been completed.’ Is this what might be termed best practice?
FIFA’s ‘best’ will replace the Ballon d’Or which the organisation was also part of, but somehow it didn’t feel that way. We loved the colourful French phraseology, and the talent, and mentally disassociated FIFA from it.
The World Cup is the same. We love the World Cup and, when it begins, we forget who is in charge and see only the football tournament — right up until the moment some villain steps up to present the trophy. ‘Oh God,’ we remember, ‘it’s FIFA.’ But by then it’s too late.
It can’t be that way with ‘The Best’, however. This is FIFA’s best, FIFA’s baby: their grubby little paws are all over it. The voting procedure will, for the first time, include fans alongside players, coaches and journalists.
But don’t be flattered. Never forget, if you join in, if you press that button, if you cast that vote, tacitly you endorse them. You are saying FIFA’s Best is good enough; and it really isn’t.
And while we're at it
It is November, so the traditional time for a row about football, remembrance and poppies. This year’s travesty centres on FIFA’s objection to England and Scotland having poppies embroidered into their shirts when they meet in a World Cup qualifier on November 11.
FIFA consider this a political gesture, a stance that in turn outrages those who feel it is vitally important that football — more than any other industry, apparently — remembers the dead of two world wars. Except poppies are no longer just about those wars. They commemorate other, less popular conflicts, too. What if England were playing Argentina, Ireland or a country from the Middle East?
Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine commemorates its war dead, including 14 men who are regarded as Class A war criminals. What if Japan wished to mark this at a football match in some way?
For this reason, FIFA does not do war. In 2013, Josip Simunic of Croatia was banned for 10 matches for leading a crowd in Zagreb in a chant that was a relic of Second World War nationalism, when Croatia was governed by allies of the Nazis. He missed the World Cup, but the message was clear.
FIFA cannot pick sides in every military event through history, so wisely keeps its counsel. For the greater good, all nations should respect this and do the same.
Contained in the media-activity schedule for England’s match with Scotland is this intriguing detail. ‘Friday, November 11. 11am — Two minutes’ silence during walk at The Grove (not open to media, however imagery available on request).’
Football has now reached peak Remembrance. It is not enough for England’s players to be silent in respect for the dead, they have got to be known to be silent and seen to be silent, too. There must be photographs of the silence, so we can marvel at how silently silent it was. Indeed, it raises that old philosophical question: if silence falls and nobody is there to witness it, does it make a sound?
Paul Fletcher, an expert in stadium construction and the former chief executive of Burnley, says the Olympic Stadium is so flawed as a football ground it would be better off demolished and rebuilt. And how would that work, exactly? It has cost £700million to construct the arena, including £280m to convert it into West Ham’s home. That would have to be written off in the event of any demolition, plus the cost of a new build.
West Ham call London Stadium home after selling Upton Park and redeveloping the ground
No doubt the stadium is insured, but against acts of God, not stupidity. Then there is the question of what would happen to West Ham in the interim. They have sold Upton Park, there is no way back — and they have entered into a 99-year lease as tenants of the London Legacy Development Corporation.
It wouldn’t need a crack lawyer to make that case, if they were left homeless for several years by inadequate facilities. Considering the catastrophic effect on their business and the length and term of the arrangement, the level of compensation would be enormous.
It is pointless coming up with pie-in-the-sky solutions that would simply replace one set of problems with another. West Ham, and their landlords, need practical fixes around policing, stewarding and safe passage. They also need the fans to consider the consequences and behave.
If Fletcher has a positive contribution to make on those fronts, he should pick up the telephone and offer his services. Talk of demolition is merely a headline-catching sound bite, wholly impractical, and, as such, of no use to anyone.
These cute photos show Britain's first gorilla to be born by C-section and its mother taking their first trip together outside.
Eight-month-old Afia, a western lowland gorilla, clings on to Romina, a 36-year-old female who is now caring for the baby.
The tiny primate was delivered via emergency C-section in February and has been hand-reared by zookeepers ever since due to her mother's ill health.
Last Wednesday, anxious keepers at Bristol Zoo introduced Afia to grown-up Romina in the hope she would accept and raise the baby as her own.
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Afia, the first baby gorilla to be born in Britain via C-section, has enjoyed her first trip outside with her surrogate mother Romina after a weekend of bonding
The duo spent three hours playing together at Bristol Zoo's Gorilla Island. They both exited Sanlam Gorilla House through the side gate while Afia clung on tightly to Romina's arm
Amazingly, the pair hit it off and following a week of successful bonding, they were allowed to venture out to the zoo's Gorilla Island by themselves yesterday.
Moving images shows cheeky Afia holding her new mother's hand and sitting in her lap while Romina - who is huge in comparison - showers the little one with affection.
Over the course of three hours, the duo explored the island - which is connected to the Gorilla House - with Romina carrying Afia and even giving her a piggyback.
Zookeeper Alan Toyne said: 'Their bond is getting stronger by the day and they can often be seen playing together.
'It was lovely to see them exploring the island as well as being so comfortable in each other's company.
'Afia has explored the whole of Sanlam Gorilla House with Romina and is now relaxed in all dens.'
They then explored the island together - stopping occasionally to look around - with Romina confidently carrying Afia and encouraging her to piggyback
Complications meant that Afia was delivered by emergency C-section and consequently she could not be raised by her biological mother, Kera.
Even when Kera recovered, she was unable to strike a bond with Afia as she does not realise the little one is hers.
Kera remains at the zoo in a separate enclosure and is slowly being taken off her medication. Zookeepers are now working to see that Afia and Romina develop a mother-child relationship.
Before last month's introduction, keepers at Bristol zoo had been playing parent to the primate, including feeding her and teaching her natural gorilla instincts.
Tuesday, 1 November 2016
New Google Android Game Lets You Discover the Himalayas in 3D
When Niantic was a startup in Google, Google Maps was leveraged along with crowdsourced data so that it was able to build the location-based app Field Trip and improved reality game Ingress, before being spun off last year. From that point, thanks to the success of Pokemon GO, the company became a household name, yet another location-based AR game. Now Google has leveraged its 3D mapping data, so that it could launch its experimental location-based game Verne: The Himalayas, for children.
Essentially the game lets users roam around the Himalayas alongside a 500’ Yeti called Verne. Available only to Android users, the game is available on Google Play for free. It was created using Google’s 3D Maps imagery, and usurers can explore the Himalayas as the character Verne, hang glide, run atop Mt. Everest, ride a jetpack, chase an argali goat, skate across icy lakes, bang a gong, etc.
What is Verne: The Himalayas?
Are there more areas to explore?
Are there more areas to explore?
As Verne travels amongst landmarks, famous points, regions are highlighted within the app which helps give users a geography lesson. Few are privileged to explore the Himalayas, but this Google app brings an interactive experience of exploration to smartphones.
In the blog post that introduces the game, the Google Maps team said, “For years, Google Maps has been adding 3D imagery from all over the world – New York City, the Grand Canyon, Mont Blanc, and more. A few of us started wondering if this 3D imagery could make learning about the world a bit more fun for kids. We started playing with quick prototypes, and even brainstormed with our own kids to get inspired by their sense of curiosity. Our idea became a new, experimental app called Verne: The Himalayas. [..] We’re excited to share it today as a fun way for anyone to take a summer trip to the tallest mountain range in the world.”
Currently, the game just focuses on visiting the Himalayan region and learning about it, but it is expected that Google will release more games for other famous regions. Verne: The Himalyas app is 213MB in size and it will only work with Android 4.4 KitKat and above smartphones. There hasn’t been any word about if and when it will be available for iOS devices.
The Pokemon GO game was an instant success because of the famous Pokemon series recall value, and its interactive game play. In just one week the game was downloaded over 10 million times becoming the fastest such app to do so.
Super Mario Run Is Going Mobile
It would seem Nintendo is jumping deeper into the mobile gaming arena. However, this time, Nintendo’s most cherished character is coming to iOS first.
Game designer legend Shigeru Miyamoto took to the stage debuting the first ever Mario mobile game, Super Mario Run, which will be exclusively available on the Apple iOS platform.
What this means is that Nintendo is pulling out all the stops and at last taking things mobile.
“They’ll be doing it first on iOS,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook as he introduced Miyamoto at the event. “They’ll be doing it in a brand new game, Super Mario Run.”
Super Mario Run modes
In Super Mario Run, players navigate the traditional 2D Mario levels. The goal is to collect as many coins as you can within a specific amount of time before you reach the flagpole, which is found at the end of the level.
In addition to the single-player mode, there is a “Toad Rally” where players can compete against one another to collect coins.
Finally, the third mode allows you to create your own Mushroom Kingdom using the coins you have collected. Whether this allows you to create your own levels, such as a mini Super Mario Maker, is not yet known for certain. Time will tell. The game also has in-app purchases.
Why iOS gets Mario first
Many critics and analysts have been encouraging Nintendo to expand past its first-party proprietary hardware. This might initiate a generation of gamers that are moving past playing Mario on a gaming console. However, no matter how good Super Mario Run might be, it is impossible to predict how engaging the experience will be when compared to the traditional Mario platform.
Even though this is a bit of a surprise statement, at this point it is almost expected since Nintendo has been making huge strides in the mobile industry. Eventually, the game is likely to also be offered for Android, but right now Nintendo is sticking with the Apple platform.
Super Mario Run release date
Super Mario Run is going to launch in December this year. Nintendo has not yet announced what the price will be. It says that users will have the opportunity to try the game for free before committing to buying it. When it launches, the game will be available in 9 languages and in over 100 countries.
Super Mario Run follows the highly successful Pokemon GO, and will join a stable of other upcoming Nintendo mobile titles before March, 2017, including games like the Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing series.
Monday, 31 October 2016
Don't you just love when you get smacked with the awful truth about something you really enjoy?
Don't you just love when you get smacked with the awful
truth about something you really enjoy?
Yeah, me either -- I still can't stomach the thought of eating anything that contains gelatin. Well, get ready, folks, because this lady is here to burst your bubble when it comes to this delicious fruit.
When a friend told her about what you can find inside of a fresh fig, she didn't want to believe it, but she obviously had to find out for herself. After she cut it open, she was faced with a whole lot of NOPE.
