Surreality

Cork won the All-Ireland.

For only the sixth time ever, Cork are the All-Ireland Senior Football Champions. No one can question that this victory was deserved. Cork were looking ragged and unimaginative after a dramatic opening few minutes. However a late burst in the first half set the stage for a more expansive second half. Cork's victory was assured due some spectacular points in the second half; Donnacha O'Connor's stands out but Kerrigan's left footed effort was nothing short of heroic. An impressive cameo from Nicholas Murphy helped secure the middle for Cork.

None of that would have mattered if it wasn't for mister consistency; Daniel Goulding. Nine points in total, seven from placed balls which kept Cork in touch when they were desperately needed. The goal in front of Hill 16 was clearly much more slippery than the Canal End. Down struggled to make any production at that end, while it the combination of Down's indiscipline and Goulding's accuracy made the difference in the end.

Goulding was rightly awarded man of the match for his efforts, winning my brother €50 in the process. This tops off what is always the surreal experience of watching Goulding play on the TV. A guy that I played GAA with for around 14 years just won an All-Ireland and was Man of the Match to boot. Growing up it was always obvious that Dan was a talent. I remember watching him play in an under 12 final where he scored all bar a couple points of Éire Óg's tally that day (with the very capable John Gleeson in a starring role at corner back too). Playing full forward with Dan in the corner was a dream; he was almost always available for the breaking ball or making intelligent runs Even though he was always the best player on the field, it's still a little weird to think that he is THAT good. Like, it's Dan; I've gotten the better of him a few times in training (few being the important word there).

In an added layer of hilarity; the Examiner did a pre-final special supplement which included a focus on Éire Óg as we had Dan and Ciarán Sheehan on the Senior team and Kevin Hallissey on the minors. It was written by Fintan O'Toole (not THAT Fintan O'Toole) who played with Goulding and myself on that same Éire Óg underage team!

NFL Week 1: Ever Seen a Zebra Screw a Lion?

To say that Week 1 of the NFL was full of surprises is an understatement. I'm going skip talking about most it though to talk about the main talking point from the weekend. I should also find some synonyms for talk. I will though add that my fantasy team brought me in a healthy 110 points putting me in 633rd position overall. Compare this to my current ranking of 1,514,494th in the Premiership Fantasy Football. I think I know which game I'm better at predicting.

For next week; I'm betting on Michael Vick coming up big against the unlucky Lions and I've decided to take a cheap gamble on Arian Foster repeating his heroics. I was very tempted to go with Aaron Rogers this week, but the Bills have a pretty good secondary (well relative to the rest of the Bills team). Plus Vick is a LOT cheaper.This has left me money to splash on receivers; Ochocinco, Austin and Dallas Clark get onto the team. I'm going with the Viking's defence to capitalise on their dome's noise to score some serious points against the Dolphins.

Now onto the burning issue of the day; watch this and write down if you think this is a perfectly acceptable catch.

Maddeningly, the zebra impersonators known as the referees didn't see this as a perfectly fine catch against all logic and intuition. This call cost the Detroit Lions their first victory since about 100BC (hence the post title and not some weird porn). The issue of course being "a lack of control of the ball through the process of catching". It's very tough. There is a logic to the rule; you can't have people juggling the ball around in the hands and call it a catch. However, surely having complete control is not completely necessary. It capped off a really crappy day for Detroit with QB Stafford getting injured and likely to miss a couple games. Dose. Talk about a kick in the teeth. 

Fantastic Football! (Now with added steroids!)

It’s that time of year again people. That’s right; the NFL season kicks off this Thursday night with the mouth watering clash of the defending champions Saints against the Vikings. I’m not going to talk about this week’s games though. I’m going to focus on the fantasy game being run by NFL UK. It’s very easy to use and really adds to the games as you start roaring on particular players or teams. Anyway I thought I’d give a bit of a rundown of how to pick your first fantasy team.


There are eight slots to fill: 1 quarterback, 2 running backs (RB), 2 wide receivers (WR), 1 tight end (TE), 1 kicker and 1 defence. There is an $18m salary cap, and players range from $4m to $1m. The good part is that in true NFL style you are not restricted to any number of changes next week. That means you can focus week to week on exploiting the bad match ups to get some cheap points. The scoring system is quite straight forward. Any RB, WR or TE get 1 point for every 10 yards they earn for their team and 6 points if they get a touchdown. The QB gets a point for every 30 yards of passing and three points per thrown TD. He’ll also be scored in the same way as the other offensive guys for any scrambles or runs he goes on. The kicker simple enough gets 1 point for every point he earns for the team. The defence get 3 points per sack or recovered fumble or interception, 2 points for a safety, and a bonus 6 if they return an interception for a TD. Yards returned for by any special teams’ players don’t get points but they get the points for a TD as per usual if they manage to get all the way to the end zone. That’s easy enough right?

When it comes to picking your players you have got to be looking for value for money in that week, so keeping an eye out for mismatches is a must. Generally anyone playing Oakland, Detroit, or St. Louis can be expected to do well. As the season progresses the main NFL website will keep detailed statistics of every player’s performances which will make it easier to spot not so obvious beneficial match ups. When it comes to the individuals, you need to ask yourself how often a player is going to get the ball in that game and how likely is he to score big when he does. Receivers (both WRs and TEs) can have some good yards per catch statistics, but the good teams usually have 3 or 4 receivers to spread the ball to so even the number one guy might only get a few catches a game. Any teams main RB is guaranteed plenty of chances to run with the ball as well picking up the occasional pass too. Therefore it makes more sense to spend money on RBs than receivers. Generally QBs don’t have great points per dollar payback either as they need a big game to bring in a decent haul of points. My generally priority order goes like this: running back, running back, receiver, receiver, quarterback, defence, receiver, and kicker.

Some notes on that. Don’t ignore defences. They can be cheap, but can also put up some big points as the Eagles defence did last year. Ignore kickers. It’s next to impossible to predict which teams will kick a pile of field goals in a week. Just get a cheap guy from a team that are able to get into kicking range most of the time and you should be fine. Even though the QB is relatively low on the priority list, you will also inevitably end up having to spend money to get a good one. It’s not worth it to spend $2m on a QB who’s just going to be handing the ball to his RB for the whole game. You should budget $3m for your QB in general. With all that in mind I’ll talk through how I picked my team for Week 1.

First Choice: RB Chris Johnson - $4m. He’s expensive, but last year he showed me that he was worth every penny, over and over again. He racked up over 2,000 yards of rushing, some decent receiving yards and a heap of TDs last year. What’s more; the Titans’ offence is built around him. He is guaranteed to get his hands on the ball many, many times in a game. He’s almost a no-brainer at the worst of times and this week Tennessee host the generally terrible Oakland Raiders. I’m expecting an explosive start to year from Johnson.

Second Choice: WR Chad Ochocinco - $3m. I know I broke my own rule of thumb but it needs to be done if you see a combination you like and you want to get it. Even thought the Bengals start with a seemingly tough assignment against the Patriots, Tom Brady’s forces are not the team they were. Even at that, it’s their offence that keeps them going rather than their defence. The Bengals are an up and coming team and with the addition of T.O. to their receiving core this should give QB Carson Palmer more targets and also create more room for Ochocinco.

Third Choice: QB Carson Palmer - $3m. He wasn’t really my third choice; he didn’t make my first draft of the team, but I had to switch QBs to free up some cash for elsewhere. Taking him means that I have a lot riding on the Bengals-Patriots game, but sometime you have to roll the dice. The same analysis as above applies. I think the Bengals could be a much stronger force this year and Palmer definitely has the skills to break into the group of elite QBs in the league. I will admit it’s a big gamble though.

Fourth Choice: RB Tim Hightower - $2m. My first few picks cost me quite a lot so I had to start saving. Hightower at $2m is a good match up choice I think for two reasons. Firstly, Arizona are playing the St. Louis Rams who were the worst team in the NFL last year. Secondly, with Warner retiring and Leinhart being left go, leaving new boy Anderson as the QB I would expect Arizona to run the ball a heck of a lot more in the opening couple games at least. Anderson doesn’t exactly come with a great record, so when they get near the goal line I’m hoping the Cardinals go to Hightower to punch through to the end zone.

Fifth Choice: TE Vernon Davis - $2m. In reality, Davis was probably the first name down in my head. One simple reason; when the 49ers get near the goal line, it is Davis who gets the short receptions for TDs. He puts up decent points as a result at half the cost of Dallas Clark or Jason Witten. San Fran open against the Seahawks who have been turned on their head by new coach Pete Carroll. This could mean a productive day for Smith, Gore, Crabtree and Davis.

Sixth Choice: K Matt Prater - $1m. I chose my kicker next to get that out of the way. Denver’s Matt Prater looked like a solid choice from the $1m ones available. I refuse to believe that spending more on a kicker is worth it; simply because it’s so hard to predict who will score big in a given week.

Seventh Choice: D Arizona - $1m. I took Arizona’s defence based entirely on their match up. The St. Louis offence couldn’t fight its way out of a wet paper bag last year and they’ve announced that rookie QB Sam Bradford will be leading their team out on Sunday. I’m seeing at least 2 sacks and 2 interceptions in this for the Cardinals’ defence.

Eighth Choice: WR Devin Hester - $2m. I left this till last as it was the one causing me most problems. Do you go for the number two receiver on a throwing team and hope he has a big game or do you go for the number one guy on a lesser team? It’s a tough choice and I nearly rolled the dice with the Cowboys’ rookie receiver Dez Bryant. Instead I decided to go for a solid choice with a good matchup. Hester is the main man in Chicago. While the Bears won’t be in the Superbowl, they should get past the Detroit Lions who were marginally less terrible than the Rams last year. They bolstered their defensive line with the number two draft pick this year, which should mean more quick passes to the speedy Hester who will be expected to do the heavy lifting on his own.

So that’s my team. Any feedback is appreciated. If you sign up for the NFL UK fantasy football, let me know what your team name is so that I can gloat when I beat you week in week out. My team is the DG Dragons just so you know that it actually is me when they show the leader board on Sky Sports.

Net Neutrality and Why You Should Care About It

If you’ve been tuned into the gadget world, the phrase net neutrality will have been thrown about a lot recently thanks to Google and Verizon (who are an American telecom if you didn‘t know). The two giant corporations came out with draft legislation for net neutrality, the first of its kind but it has come under a hail of abuse and has placed the two companies in the centre of massive debate in the telecom industry.


In a nutshell, net neutrality is the idea that all bytes are created equal and should be treated as such. Internet service providers (ISPs) shouldn’t be able to discriminate and prioritise certain traffic over others. Sounds good in principle yeah? Like all fluffy ideas, there are issues. Enforcing complete net neutrality would prevent ISPs from filtering spam, not displaying child pornography and provide the necessary network management at peak times. As much as we’d like to think it; access to the internet is not unlimited and when everyone tries to get on at once the ISP has to do something to try to ensure everyone gets some piece of the action. A bit like the rolling blackouts they do in LA when it gets hot to reduce demand on the power so that the whole city doesn’t go dark at once (that may seem a little obscure but I was watching a Criminal Minds episode in which that featured last night. I can only assume it’s true…)


There are concerns though at the moment that ISPs will start managing their traffic a little too much, effectively stopping peer-to-peer file sharing, charging certain websites (like Google/Youtube) to ensure a quality connection for its customers who visit that site or even blocking off competitor’s websites altogether.
Like all corporate disputes however the key issue is money. Google and many other internet based companies make huge profits off the back of the infrastructure the ISPs provide. The ISPs in comparison work with very tight margins and huge capital expenditure cost. Basically, the ISPs are fighting net neutrality as it gives them power over the internet companies. Internet companies obviously don’t want to have to pay and a more subtle annoyance will be having to pick and choose their markets rather than just being open to the world once you’re on the web.


So far the ISPs haven’t been going down this road because bandwidth has been plentiful for the most part. However, there is a crunch coming. The crunch is coming in the mobile area due to spiralling data usage from smartphones. While cabled service can provide huge speeds and carry massive amounts of data, wireless is severely limited in comparison. This is specifically why Google and Verizon made an exemption from net neutrality in their legislation and is the main talking point on the interwebs.


I would like to dispel the notion that I’m turning into a corporate whore since moving to London, but the fluffy principles of net neutrality just don’t stand up to reality and not just for mobile networks. If we want ISPs to continue upgrading our networks then someone has to pay for it. Internet companies can provide that money without hurting the consumer too much. Not only that but I don’t think it’s fair that Google (through YouTube in the main) can take up such a massive proportion of the strain on the networks and not be expected to pay for the service. As long as sensible laws are enacted to protect consumers privacy and against anti-competitive behaviour, then I’ve no problem the net not being neutral.


Why I think you should care about this though is that for the internet generation that we are; free and open access to everything on the internet has been take as a given. The internet was the modern wild west; no laws, no regulations, no barriers to entrepreneurs. While it will never be fully tamed, the internet is coming more and more under control. There are more barriers now to setting up an internet start up, most of them non-financial. Illegal file sharing is being clamped down on. Governments are quickly catching up with legislation to govern the net e.g. legislation to tax online betting is in the works in Ireland. The debate over net neutrality is about what is the core philosophy of the internet, and as much as many people will hate it; it will be money that decides which way the legislation falls.

The T.O. Show Comes to Town

It's that time of year again. Sports of various codes are swinging back into action. The Premier League starts in under two weeks, but I'll leave my take on that till a closer date. The NFL doesn't kick off for another three weeks after that but the NFL has provided one of the most interesting signings of the summer. Screw the LeBron James primetime hour, the T.O. show rolls into Cincinnati this week and it's looks like a match made in heaven.

T.O. finally saw sense and took a large pay cut (he's down to $2m for the year) in order to play for a team that are real contenders. Not only that, but Chad Ochocinco (neé Johnson) and QB Carson Palmer have been vocal in trying to get T.O. to come. Ochocinco and T.O. are actually good friends which should help the bruising to T.O's ego which will come from him having to play second fiddle to Ochocinco. Hopefully, this shows that T.O. is ready to put his history behind him and focus on the serious business of winning that coveted superbowl ring. The Bengals now have Benson (a quality running back), Palmer (A Heismann Trophy winning, Pro-Bowl, first overall pick in the draft, so yeah quality) and two excellent wide receivers and had the fourth best defence in the league last year's regular season. This makes the Bengals serious contenders for the coming year.

I still think it's the Cowboy's year though. Or the Vikings.

The Raoul Moat Saga

Ever since the tragic events of the 3rd and 10th of July, newspapers, politicians and all entities that one could ascribe the "establishment" label to in any regard have been scathing in their vilification of Raoul Moat. In fairness, as far as anyone can be called a villian; he can. However, the lack of sympathy being shown and the lack of understanding of those who show sympathy is appalling.

To quote the most establishment figure one can find, the Rt. Hon. David Cameron

“I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community.” 

So, David, let me try to enlighten you why some people feel sympathy for a killer. There are a few reasons why people do this.

First of all, we must remember that Moat's life story covered miles of news pages and the story had twenty four hour coverage on television. It pervaded the everyday lives of people. Once people saw his background, his breakdown and his kids it became a whole lot easier to humanise him. The word "monster" is used too often by the media to label people, and people readily latch onto it for paedophiles. It's easy to call up images of trolls or other hideous beasts and put paedophiles in the same category as them. In fact it's easy to put any group of people in that category as long as you don't know them. That's basically where racism comes from. Knowing people doesn't necessarily lead to complete understanding, but it does lead to a little understanding and a little sympathy.

Secondly, people are conditioned to root for the underdog. Whether in sports or in life; when someone is facing nigh impossible odds, ninety-nice times out of a hundred the neutral spectator wants the underdog to win for it to be dramatic. Such conditioning has been achieved through years of Hollywood movies where the hero overcomes the forces of the entire universe to rescue the treasure and/or girl. There's a plethora of glorified convicts on the the run from the law in our collective psyche; Ned Kelly, Butch Cassidy, even Robin Hood for crying out loud. Regardless of his crimes, when the faceless state brings all of its draconian powers to bear on one individual, the natural inclination of people is to cheer for the little guy.

Thirdly, the manner of his death. It was a tragedy. Any death is. Worse than that, it was a tragedy which many see as have being preventable. The police had Moat surrounded for over five hours before he shot himself. I'm going to bet I'm not the only one thinking that some form of tranquillizer or something could have been used to bring him in peacefully. I'm sure the police officers did the best they could, but the feeling still remains.

Lastly, someone died. It is perfectly natural to feel sympathy when someone dies, regardless of whether you know the person or not. People should be celebrating the fact that we are able to feel sympathy for killers. Empathising and sympathising with other people is what gels society. A lack of empathy and sympathy is what makes it possible for people to commit violent crime. We feel sympathy, thus we have not turned into the animal during the hunt.

So rather than condemning the sympathy, we should try to understand it and focus it on the positives. The messages being sent out by the Prime Minister and the rest of the establishment only serves to divide the state further from people and hardly serves the purpose of building Mr. Cameron's "Big Society".

You Know What? We're Pretty Awesome

So there I was, hurtling along in the sky at about 500km per hour, around five km above the ground in long rather heavy metal cylinder. The thought struck me; how is it that such an incredible feat of human engineering and genius that is powered flight does not inspire awe in all who see it let alone use it.

It seems rather incredulous, but we've become normalised to the thought of air travel. It has become common to the point of boredom as evidenced the fact that the time spent on safety instructions by the cabin crew is usually spent by the passengers sleeping or reading or listening to an ipod or some combination thereof. I have flown approximately 66,510km in my life, and I would not consider myself a prolific traveller. My elder sister puts her mileage in the 100,000km area. At least.

It's the same with other engineering marvels. We have had images from all over the world beamed into our homes for decades now. We can converse instantaneously with friends on the other side of the world. We use a series of giant explosions to land an object accurately on a planet over 50 MILLION kilometres away, AND then we able to land that object carefully enough that it's able to drive over the alien landscape AND collect samples and data AND transmit that data back to us. When you sit back and think about how a little while, the breath and depth of human advancements are simply mind boggling. We adapt to using new technology astoundingly quickly and integrate it into our lives. Can you imagine now a world without mobile phones, without the internet? We now have robotic limbs for paraplegics; the only limit on what's next is our imagination (and the laws of physics I suppose).

Despite this ability to adapt, I do worry at times how we'd cope with disaster, and I mean society ending disaster. I've just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy which is a masterpiece showing man's struggle in a post-apocalyptic state. It also shows how woefully under prepared the world is for that sort of disaster. Think about how long you could survive on the food in your house right now. I'm guessing a week at most. Without a shop to buy your food from, what would you do? Could people adapt quickly enough to that? It's a fascinating question. All I know is having done scouts as a kid would suddenly become useful at last.

So the next time a telemarketer phones you, take some time to remember how amazing it is that they are able to harass you like that. Take the time to enlighten them to the majesty of technology. Not only would it educate them, you'd be guaranteed not to get any more calls from that company again.