Liverpool 1 - Man Utd 0 (FA Cup)

Great result today for Liverpool to knock Man-Utd out of the FA Cup. First time we've beat them in the FA Cup for 85 years!
Again a very strong first half performance and we could have scored more but didn't capitalise on all the opportunities. Howerver, Crouch's come back goal was enough to put us in a very strong position, but Man-Utd had nothing to put us under pressure today. Long may it continue!

Liverpool 1 - Arsenal 0

Another win for Liverpool to put them 10 points ahead of Arsenal and 6 ahead of Tottenham. Looks like things are getting back on track. Fingers crossed for the FA Cup game against Man-U on Saturday. They looked like they were getting back to form too in their last game. Jesus! Listen to me! I’m starting to sound like a real football fan! How laughable this probably is to so many people back home in Ireland.
My commiserations to Yolanda for Real Madrid getting knocked out last night even though they won 4-0 they needed it to be 5. Sorry Babe!

Middlesbrough 3-0 Chelsea

What a result! Rafa better study the video of this game closely to see what we have to learn.

I'll be keeping a close eye on Portsmouth v Man-U later! Clearly anything can happen now!

Wigan 0 - Liverpool 1

Thank god for that! See the difference when Liverpool scores first. It's all about the mental attitude of the players. We can go into the game against Arsenal with more confidence now.

Paella @ Jordi's

Last night we were invited round to Jordi and Nuria's flat on mathew street for Paella. Jordi has a restaurant in Spain but they close for 4 months over the winter so he's come to Liverpool to work in La Tasca and improve his english. BeBe is from Nigeria and isn't in the picture as he was the one taking it! This will make a change for him because he's a model and spends plenty enough time in front of a camera.

Anyway, the paella was great and we had a few vino's to help it down. It was a good laugh and good to meet some new people.

Charlton 2 - Liverpool 0

I'll leave it up to Mr Benitez to comment on last nights events....

"It was unbelievable we have lost that game," said a bemused Benitez. "For the first 40 minutes we were always attacking and it was one-way traffic. Then what happened was just crazy. It's clear to see it wasn't a penalty but when you concede a goal you then can't concede another."

"We've got to learn from our mistakes and we've got to learn soon," added the Reds boss. "If we want to win trophies we can't concede a second goal straight after the first. We've been talking about mistakes after recent games and tonight we have made another two.

Hopefully it's just a bad patch that won't last too long.

There's Wigan, Arsenal, Man-U, Benfica to come next and it's not any easier after that. Things must be fixed before the next game or we could see Liverpool drop down the premiership table very quickly and get knocked out the champions league too!

MacGyver Returns!

priceless.com - Film Festival has the new master card advert with MacGyver as the star! Absolutely classic!!!

RateMyTeachers.ie

This is an interesting one! RateMyTeachers.ie is a site where pupils can tell it how it is from their point of view. Not too many teachers from my era remain but it looks to me that things havent changed that much since I left. Facinating reading for about 5 mins for me but I bet It makes for good conversation in the parents/teachers meetings.

Chelsea 2 - Liverpool 0

What a farce! Again we started out as the stronger team in the first half and failed to capitalise on the opportunities, of which there were many. But then, Chelsea gets one opportunity and they score straight away!
The second half is a bit more of an even handed affair but Chelsea capitalises again and we are left 2-0 down and frustrated. What are we doing wrong?
Generally in defence Liverpool is as capable as anyone else but they seem to be getting caught out by all going for the ball and not sticking to their defensive zone. You can get away with this when playing against lesser teams, but against the Chelsea’s and the Man-U’s of this world they will take advantage of any opportunity they get.
In the middle we are great.
Up front? Well… we are not scoring goals it’s as simple as that! We have plenty of strikers and they are supposedly world class players but they just don’t seem to have the same aggression as the strikers from Chelsea or Man-U. Our guys are too nice! It’s a tough one for me this, because I hate players like Crespo who is a macho asshole and has a huge head. But on the other hand when you are in front of the goal you need to have that confidence that you are unbeatable and strike the ball like you mean it. This is what is missing from Liverpool at the moment. We are just too nice up front! (Just my theory)
As for the sending off of Pepe Reine…he should have kept his cool but it also should not have come to what it did. From my point of view there was nothing wrong with his tackle on Gudjohnsen, who seemed to me to have handled the ball. Reine should not have raised his hand to Robben, but his swan dive was sickening. That a grown man would resort to such tactics is disgusting. Nothing was made of the Chelsea players who raised their hands to push Reine away from the scene and there was a severe lack of consistency in the referee’s decisions throughout the match, in both directions.
However, at the end of the day (got to get that in there when talking about football), Liverpool lost because of their own faults. There was nothing spectacular about Chelsea’s performance and we could have come away with a victory if these faults had been removed. Benitez warned about these problems in the days before the match but it just didn’t sink in for the players it seems.
Chelsea is a runaway train again this season. But we still need to keep working towards second place and a good result in Europe. Next year could be our year in the premiership but we need to start strong and figure out what we are going to do about getting a serious goal scoring machine.

Good Night, and Good Luck

I loved this movie! Great script and cinematography complemented by strong performances all round. Directed by George Clooney, it was all filmed in B&W. The film is set in the 1950’s and centres on the main character Edward R Murrow and his quest to stop Senator McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt. I couldn’t help feeling the morels of this movie are very relevant to the current political climate.

Edward R. Murrow:
“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

The point here is that it seems clear that America sometimes could do with looking in the mirror before pointing the finger. That said, the same could be said about lots of other countries. But I’m not opening that can of worms.
The main story is supported by some sub plots and although I’ve heard other people say that they go nowhere, I feel that they do help in showing the cultural climate in which people were living at that time. We have come a long way in terms of human rights since the 1950’s through out the world be lets face it we have a long way to go yet!
It’s alleged by IMDB to have been a greyscale set filmed in colour and touched up but I’m not convinced that this is true. Someone in IMDB having a laugh maybe?

Underworld - Evolution

Went to see this with Jon ‘cos he had some free tickets. Probably would have waited to see it on DVD otherwise. I know this because I’ve still not seen the first movie. Anyway...It was more or less what i expected, but the story was a little over complicated for this type of movie and it wasn't always clear who the characters where straight away. This may be less of a problem if you have seen the first one.
The special effects were of a high standard and plentiful. The sets were good too, all very dark and there was a good atmosphere to it all.
Of course there were the obligatory gratuitous shots of Kate Beckinsale’s rubber clad body and there was a sex scene too but too but it wasn’t particularly steamy and didn’t give the censorship board much to worry about.
The rest of the supporting cast are an ensemble of British actors of a high standard like Derek Jacobi, Bill Nighy, and Tony Curran, which helps to make the whole thing a bit more…well believable isn’t the right word…but you know what I mean.
Well worth checking out on DVD but only go to the cinema if you are a fan of this type of thing.

More Gay Cowboys!

YouTube - Brokeback to the Future

Chinese New Year

It was the Chinese New Year yesterday and Yolanda, Alia & I met Jon, Rob & Marta in chinatown for the celebrations. It was a great opertunnity to try out Jon & Rob's new cameras. (Lucky Bastards!)It was flippin' freezin' yesterday so we didn't hang about too long in chinatown. We wandered down to 3345 for a coffee and warmed up instead. Followed closely by a fry up at home and falling asleep on the sofa in front of the telly.

Oh, and it's the 'year of the dog' by the way! A friend tells me that could be true of every year for him but i thought it might get him in trouble with ex-girlfriends if i put his name. (So don't worry Declan your secret is safe with me!)

ACDC Tribute

Yannis and I went to the Cavern Club on saturday night to see an ACDC tribute band called "Touch too Much" as part of the Rock Extravaganza and it was a great laugh. We met Cedric there too and afterward we met up with Gavin and some others and went to the Krazyhouse. As always this too was great craic. I went home about 3am and left the others to it. Clearly getting sensible in my old age!

Brokeback Mountain

It was actually a bit of a struggle to get to see this film. It's proven so popular in FACT that it's been sold out all last week. So we didn't get to see it till Tuesday.
It's a good film, there's no doubt about that and it's two main protagonists do a great job. In particular, Heath Ledger, who was magnificent and is a definite nomination for an Oscar.
The cinematography in the movie is magnificent and makes great use of the breathtaking landscapes.
The bottom line here is that it has it's flaws, but I’m not going to get into all that right now. Go and see it and make up your own minds. Despite the flaws it is a great movie and will no doubt be seen by many as a milestone in cinema because of its subject matter.

Man-Utd 1 - Liverpool 0

Well… What can I say? Disappointed doesn’t quite sum it up…disgusted? Yes that it! I was disgusted with that moment of luck that Man Utd had against Liverpool, who dominated the game yet failed to score. I believe the technical term for a situation like this is ‘a travesty’.
The comments of Carlos Queiroz, United’s assistant coach after the match didn’t do anything to improve my mood. He claimed that they planned to give Liverpool the ‘apparent control of the game’ they would ‘find the right places to damage Liverpool’ and then claimed their ‘plan worked’ and they ‘deserved to win’. Rubbish!!!!
Liverpool dominated the game because they were the better side. They lost the game because they didn’t capitalise on the opportunities they had and Man Utd got lucky in the last minute.
I could go on but I won’t. Time to move on…

Jarhead

Last night I met with Jon in the FACT and we saw Jarhead. It's not your typical war movie, in fact there isn't an awful lot of combat in the film. It's a very personal view of the war from a man in the marines and his experience of the gulf war in the eighties.

The man in question is Anthony Swofford and the film is based on his book also titled Jarhead. I've not read the book so i can't comment on that, but the film I enjoyed.It's a slow paced movie and has moments of both humour and violence. There are some points that will make you think about the rights and wrongs of war, but mainly it's a film about a fairly normal guy trying to do his job that seems sometimes to be in over his head. Anyway...I liked it. And I'm sure that I'll watch it again sometime.

Meeting the Liverpool (Spanish) Team...

On tuesday night Yolanda & I along with Alia and Rachel went to the Holiday Inn Liverpool to be part of a small audience for a spanish national radio program.
The station is Cadena Ser and they are a national institution in Spain when it comes to all things sport.
They have organised the program because of the high Spanish contingent in the Liverpool camp. For the programme Rafa Benitez, Luis Garcia, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Morientes and Jose Reina attended. So there were a few photo opertunites to be had.

Setting up for the broadcast...

Yolanda & I with Rafa Benitez...
Rachel and Yolanda with Luis Garcia...
Rafa Benitez with Rachel and Yolanda...
Fernando Morientes with Yolanda and Rachel... Xabi Alonso with Yolanda and I...
Fernando Morientes with Alberto and I

KING KONG

Last night a load of us went to see King Kong in FACT Liverpool. It was absolutely amazing! Huge Creepy Crawly Things, Huge Man Size Maggots, Giant Bats, Dinosaurs, and of course King Kong himself! And they are only the computer generated characters! The live action is great too with the relationship between Naomi Watts and Kong working well. Jack black and Adrian Brody were great too. Do yourself a favour and go to see it!

Sapporo Teppanyaki

Last Sunday Yolanda and I went to Sapporo for a meal with some mates. As always it was really great. The food is fantastic and they have an even bigger menu now.
Anyway... the thing with Sapporo is that not only do the chefs prepare the food for you in an entertaining way they also sometimes get you up to have a go too.
As you can see I was drafted in this time and had a go at trying to throw an egg into the air using a kitchen utensil and then...catch it in my chef's hat!
I nearly managed it on my first attempt but got slightly over zealous on my second attempt and through the egg a little to high and it smashed on the extractor overhead and fell to the floor in a large mess. The picture to the left is me and the chef laughing at my ineptitude moments later.
However, I do now feel that there was a glimmer of natural talent in my first attempt and surely a career as Ireland’s first Teppanyaki TV chef awaits! Well…it’s something to fall back on isn’t it!