stevecs

Avram Grant The New West Ham Boss

It’s Avram Grant.  There’s a shocker!!!! didn’t see that one coming, ok I know sarcasm doesn’t always do well in print so lets cut to the chase and try to be sensible.

He has signed on a four year contract I believe.  After Zola left I must admit I did wonder who would be mad or desperate enough to take the hot seat but I suppose considering the opportunities out there West Ham isn’t such a bad proposition even if it does mean putting up with Sullivan.

He has an ok track record and after going through the usual media merry go round of being linked with every out of work or recently sacked manager, including some random ones that I had never heard of this does seem to be the sensible choice.  I am going to reserve judgement as the guy has only just got the job so lets see how he goes because in all honesty I haven’t really got any feelings on his appointment yet apart from what I have already stated.

There are things that are concerning me, these are only based on the usual media speculation though and that is we are now being linked with half of the recently relegated Portsmouth team. you don’t need to remember back that far to remember that with the team we currently have (at the time of writing) we just about stayed up by the skin of our teeth on a measly thirty five points and yet we are being linked with a whole host of players who couldn’t keep their team up.  I know they had the nine point deduction but they still would have been relegated without that so you can see where my concerns are coming from.

SUGO don’t need to come out and tell us there isn’t going to be a lot of money available as they have been making that all to clear already and with the comments that apart from Scott Parker the rest of the team are all up for sale suggests that to buy we will have to sell.  This also comes as no shock, so I wonder where all this will end up? I just hope we don’t have another season like we have just had.

I wish Avram Grant good luck as on and off the pitch I think he is going to need it.

COYI

iTunes®

For a long time I have had a problem with iTunes®. I just don’t like it and I know that I am not alone. I have thought about this for a long time but after a quick few tweets between myself and westhamprocess tonight on twitter I felt the need to write something.

As far as media management software goes there are far far better options available to us out there and yet Apple force us to use iTunes. Now this wouldn’t be such a problem if it was a well designed and slick piece of software but lest be honest, it’s not.  Only the most ardent of Apple fanboys would argue with me that it’s good.

Apple as a company are the masters of media hype and it works for them, just look at the products they have launched and the storm they create amongst the masses.  People queue for days and would do almost anything to get their hands on the latest and greatest Apple product, just look at the iPhone® and iPad® for example.  I am not going to argue that these products are not great, those days are long gone for me as it’s like fighting a losing battle.  I am still not over enamoured with the products but as an owner of two iPods® and an iPhone along with an iPod for my missus I would be a hypocrite to criticise the products too much.

Herein lies the problem though, iTunes!!!!!

for want of a better phrase, I have sat here for a while writing and re-writing what I was going to say but it still comes back to the same stock phrase that is going round and round in my head:

IT’S UTTER SHITE!!!!!

From the very start of booting up iTunes the problems start.  As I have previously mentioned there are a couple of Apple products that rely on iTunes in this house and yet you still can’t get the bloody software to auto detect what product has been connected and load up the right iTunes library, what’s that all about? Once connected you know the individual serial number and can even show a picture of the right product and even the colour but you can’t tie that into an individual library? I still have to keep my finger on the shift key when clicking the iTunes icon and then manually select the library I want.  Seriously this is schoolboy stuff and it really does make you look like amateurs.

The software is a resource hog, I’m not kidding does it really need to hog so much of a computers power just to fire up and browse the store? And the controls and just general layout and feel are so tired now it really need a major overhaul.

I don’t understand a company that puts so much effort into it’s media hype and design of their hardware products but can’t sort out one of their most used and main pieces of software.  It’s one of the main reasons I still will not buy one of the Mac range of pc’s (apart from still being way too overpriced for what they are of course) I have this feeling that if they are so blaise about something as important as iTunes then how do they treat the rest of their software? it’s a reasonable question I think.

I could look elsewhere for software to manage my iPods and iPhone as it is out there and does a good job but you still need iTunes in the initial set up process and yes, I buy my music so it’s convenient to do it all in the one place although I do buy from play.com and Amazon more now and then just import in as well as buy traditional CD’s .  My iPhone needs the app store so again it’s kind of difficult to ditch iTunes altogether even though I tend to browse the store from the phone more than I do the pc for this reason.

This is not an Apple bash post so I am not going to over rant and start picking up on every single thing that needles me about iTunes but I am being honest when I say that Apples attitude towards iTunes does stop me from making the final step over to the darkside and try out a Mac in whatever guise I choose.

How about it Mr Jobs, how about you stop focusing on the hardware just for a while and get one of your most important pieces of software sorted out.  you have pulled it off with the iPhone and by the looks of it you have done it again with the iPad so why not get a team together and really overhaul iTunes from the top to the bottom and give us a piece of media management software that resembles the rest of the Apple portfolio and not what seems to be an afterthought these days.  We get updates from time to time but an educated guess tells me that its more about stopping jailbreakers than sorting out iTunes.

Sort out iTunes Mr Jobs, I am not alone in my hatred for it.

I will leave you with a quote that I wholeheartedly agree with.  Charlie Brooker is a TV Personality who also writes a newspaper column for The Guardian newspaper.  Now I don’t know how tech savvy Charlie is but that is not the important thing here, he recognises just how woeful iTunes is and when someone writes it in a newspaper column then others will take note.

You’re required to use iTunes during the setup process, which is like being forced to eat a handful of mud. iTunes is twice as awful as any software crime Microsoft ever inflicted on the world.

neighbourly rivalry

Originally uploaded by evissa

You know it’s going to happen, I know it’s going to happen. Every couple of years we see this when a major football competition comes around.

I avoid it like the plague and as mentioned in my previous post I have never done it and will never do it.

I bet there were cars parked out the front with England flags protruding from them.

England

Before we start lets get one thing straight, I have never been one of the “we are going to win the world cup” brigade who blindly goes around prophesying that we are going to go all the way.  I don’t harp on about a certain date back in the 60′s as I wasn’t even born.

I have never flown the flag proudly from my car or hung it from the windows for all to see.  the fact is I like to think of myself as a football realist (as a West Ham fan you have to be, it’s ingrained).

I love the world Cup I always have and of course I would absolutely love to see England win it, I will scream from the rooftops if we did go on to win it but lets be honest we are not even favourites, I reckon we are in the second group of “possibles who may sneak up but are really outsiders”

Capello has announced his squad today and here it is for all it’s erm Glory:

Goalkeepers
Robert Green, Joe Hart, David James
Defenders
Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock
Midfielders
Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Shaun Wright-Phillips
Forwards
Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney

I am uninspired and it feels like same old same old England.  Sod the real creativity and the players who have shown promise this season and go for the safe same old faces approach.  I should try and remain positive but I cant when I see the likes of Heskeys name on the sheet. If one more person tries to reason with me that Heskey should be on the plane because “Rooney scores more goals with him” I will go apoplectic with rage.  I don’t care! Rooney will score goals anyway, Heskey just doesn’t as simple as that he falls over and gets injured at the slightest touch (a bit like our Carlton Cole) hes a big lump who goes down far far too easy. Here’s a statistic that popped up on twitter:

Emile Heskey, striker, 58 caps 7 goals; Jose Luis Chilavert, keeper, 74 caps 8 goals….

See what I mean!

Lets look at the rest of it shall we? The keepers are no surprise and think we have the best of what’s on offer.  Ledley King for a start, great player but he is so injury prone with those knees is he really worth the risk? I mean the player can’t even train any more. I have no doubt over his ability but surely we need 100% fit players in the squad, and that brings me onto Barry, Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Lennon, all players who have struggled with injury this season.  I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be going but I really hope we have fantastic medical staff and facilities as I think we are going to need it.

Micheal Carrick is another player who I have always been a fan of but what has he really done this season? and yet our own Scott Parker has been left behind, now thats not favouritism because he is a Hammer but he played out of his skin and showed what a truly great committed player he is this season. Darren Bent had a great season for Sunderland but again they prefer HESKEY, sorry but I just cant get past the fact that he will be there.

Lampard and Gerrard, ah that age old question: can they play together? that question will always pop up and I have to say that I’m still not sure.  Lampard has had a good season with Chelsea and will be on a high but Gerrard this season by Liverpools standards has been woeful, again I’m not saying Gerrard shouldn’t be there but I have to question whether he will really be up for it.

I could go on and on but you get the gist of it.  Westhamprocess made a good quote on twitter:

Let’s be honest – if Liverpool made the Champions League this year, Carragher wouldn’t be bothered about the World Cup.

I now have a few days to try and get my positive head on and throw my full support behind the team, and I will because as fans that is what we do.  I hope that we have a good competition and that all my fears and gripes are proven unfounded as I have no problem being proven wrong but at the moment I just feel a little bit MEH.

A Cross(ed) Sullivan

So after being linked with Thierry Henry which has seemingly gone quiet and by that I guess that I was right in the fact that it was never going to happen we are now being quoted as trying to get Joe Cole back and old golden balls himself David Beckham.

I would say “you just couldn’t make this up” but obviously you can but it is pure comedy gold.  Again I would like to see it happen but I can never see it happening in all honesty.

I have respect for Sullivan and Gold because of what they are trying to do for the club and having so far saved us from doom then I have a lot to thank them for but  I just wish that Sullivan would get some PR training or leave the newspaper quotes to someone else who is a bit more media savvy.

He just doesn’t think before he speaks and it makes him and us look like jokes.  for example these are just two quotes from this weekends newspapers.

“Hammers striker Benni McCarthy is “nearly as fat as me,” says West Ham co-owner David Sullivan. “He’s the one West Ham player I want to go to the World Cup because he might come back fitter .”

And on the proposed announcement that Avram Grant will be our next manager by next week:

“I like him very much. He’s completely the opposite of what I imagined. I imagined a dour, boring, serious man with no humour. In fact he’s got a very dry sense of humour with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of football. Wonderful. He tells jokes and stories. He’s led a full life and he’s learned from that”

You just know what he is trying to say but its the way he comes out with it that makes you cringe.  Some thoughts should just be kept in house and not media sound bites for the world to read over.  IF you were a player and was looking for a move and West Ham were a club that was interested in you, would you want to sign for a club whose chairman was so open about his personal thoughts on people?

Please Mr Sullivan take a breath before you speak and give your mind time to catch up with your mouth.

Thanks