Germany 4-1 England.

I must admit, I thought England would do better. Unfortunately we saw 3 different England teams in the match.

The first team was the one that started the match and went down 2-0. Upson was awful. Terry was a joke. David James played very well until the second goal, which he could and probably should have saved. Milner wasn't crossing too well. Defoe and Rooney again not combining well.

The second team was the one that pulled the goal back, and then scored a second but for no good reason it was disallowed. At 2-1 England looked really really good; sharp, moving the ball quickly, and most important, they were confident. Gerrard looked like he gave a flying fuck; a rarity. The defence were strong. Defoe was darting around. Lampard was dangerous. However, in our strive to get forward and attack we let in two goals. Leading to the third team.

The third team was the one that played from 4-1 til the end of the match. They just didn't care, they gave up, which I guess, would be fair enough at 4-1 in a friendly against a very good team. But in a knockout game of the World Cup against a shaky-at-the-back Germany it wasn't really good enough.
Lampard and Gerrard proved they can't play together in the midfield properly. I couldn't put it better than Harry Redknapp who said "You need a goal, so you take off Jermain Defoe and bring on Emile Heskey?". Not really a brilliant decision but by then it didn't matter.

I'm afraid that no matter how you look at it, that travesity of a goal that never was most likely cost England the game. At 2-1 we looked better, and at 2-2 we wouldn't have been chasing the game and sending our defenders way up the pitch to attack.
Germany caught us on the counter attack for 3 of their 4 goals, and I think at 2-2 it would have been a completely different game, with England confident from having come back from 2 goals down.

Everyone who I talked to about this before the match and tournament agrees there is no good reason not to have video referees, and I think this is just the final proof from an English perspective. That decision made a third of the match unwatchable, and I'm sure it has had consequences for many different teams, not only in terms of goals, but in terms of penalty decisions, red cards and litte things like whether something was a corner or a goal kick.
There is no good reason not to have video referees.


Overall, these are universal truths about the match:

Rooney was rubbish.
Barry looked unfit and contributed nothing.
Johnson was lazy on the ball and lost it almost as much as Barry.
Rooney and Defoe didn't ever combine well.
Lampard and Gerrard didn't ever combine well.
James made two or three excellent saves, and also let in two goals that Rob Green or Joe Hart would have saved, showing the kind of inconsistancy that he is famous for.

Overall, these are universal truths about our World Cup:

Rooney was rubbish.
Barry looked unfit and contributed nothing.
Rooney and Defoe didn't ever combine well.
Heskey and Wright-Phillips were a waste of space.
Ashley Cole worked hard every time and was our best player.
Milner is the only winger who could cross.
England looked good and up for it when things were going well, and awful when things were going badly.

"Sorry".

"Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word"; a hit single twice for Elton John and once for Blue. And also the sole proprieter to a truly rubbish title line.
Really? The hardest word is sorry? I say sorry all the time, most often for things I'm not remotely sorry about. Men are always saying they are sorry. Women rarely, but then women rarely have things to be sorry about.

"Sorry", in my opinion, in the social sphere is a virtually rendundant word. It doesn't make any sort of difference to whoever you say it to. A life-threatening illness, for example, is not remotely made any more barable by the doctors and friends and family telling you how sorry they are. Nor does being sorry make up for cheating on a partner, it doesn't make a difference, not in the slightest.
A work rival doesn't make their promotion at the expense of yours any easier to accept by telling you they are sorry you didn't get the job.

Anyone who has ever said "sorry" to me has not improved in my estimation for doing so.
Don't be sorry, just stop doing horrible things to me.
Seriously though, don't bother apologising, if I like you enough I'll forgive you. And if I can't forgive you I will continue our friendship as genuinely as I can without ever letting on how much I hate you. It wont make any difference to you or me.

Heated heat.

It's the summer!

Unfortunately in England we are blessed with weather that can only ever be far too hot or far too cold. We have a limit of 3 days per year when we can say "it's perfect weather". I think I like it though, because it's England and that's just how it is, I wouldn't want it different.

If the World Cup has taught me anything it is that I hate cliches. I get so annoyed with being able to "cut the tension with a knife", or teams giving "110% percent", or after a "decent spell of play" the commentator just pauses for effect and says "Better." full stop included.

I love the World Cup though, and despite what those women (I'm not saying all women) who invariably watch EastEnders *every single day* say, there is NOT "too much football". It's not the same match over and over.

Religion.

I was thinking the other, "I often give religion a hard time, too hard, perhaps".

But I don't. I very much fucking don't.

I would like to believe in an afterlife, or a "reason to exist" beyond what we would call conventional human interaction and lifestyle, but any time I begin to question my own attitude towards religion, I am always brought back to the same, challenging issue; it's all a load of crap.

I'll use the Christian religion as my primary example, mainly because it is the one that I have thrust upon me most often. Now, Christianity more or less says: live a good life and go to Heaven, live a bad life and go to Hell. There are various complications and debates mainly to do with shellfish and gays, but essentially, as long as you're a good person and do everything God told us to do in the Bible you will spend eternity in the blissful joy of Heaven.
Do a few bad things here and there, sin a little, and don't repent, and I'm sorry my friend, but the punishment for your insignificant indiscretions is eternity (yes, that's right, infinity years, never ending) torture and agony in Hell.

Seriously? That's what Christians believe happens. 80-odd years of living on Earth somehow translates to a limitless number of years either in agony or bliss. No middle ground at all?
Un-baptised/un-christened children who (God forbid [EPIC IRONY]) get hit by a car, also go to hell. They didn't get a fair chance! They might have been utterly perfect, loving people, but no, we'll never know. They might have stolen some sweeties too. Eternity in Hell for them, just in case.

What about all those humans who were around before Jesus was born and spread the good message of God. God fucked them over! He didn't give them a chance. These days Americans have televangelists ten-a-penny shouting at them to put their faith in the Almighty Savior, but they got nothing. No-one told them what was going to happen.
Hell for them.

And what about all the remote tribes in Africa who had never heard of Jesus. They got a fucking shock when they found themselves at the fiery gates of hell about to enjoy millennia upon millennia of unendurable pain.
"Sorry," says God "I was a bit busy running the universe to let you guys know about Hell and that. LOL"

The worst thing about religion for me, though, is it isn't giving you any answers. You hear people say "well, science can't explain how the universe began". Sure there was the Big Bang, but what did the Big Bang come from? Christianity sidles up next to you and gives you the very compelling "God did it".
But that's it. It doesn't actually explain anything at all. Where did God come from? He wasn't always there, that is an impossibility, something had to have been there before God, and then you are just back to the same problem.
Christianity hasn't given you an answer at all, it has just distracted you whilst it made the question impossible to answer.

The final annoyance, however, is that no matter what, even if I'm right (and I am) I'm not going to be able to gloat about it. I wont be able to line up all the religious people in front of me and say "HA, I WAS FUCKING RIGHT ALL ALONG AND YOU IDIOTS BELIEVED IN A GOD THAT WASN'T THERE".
I wont get that pleasure.
There are two options. Either I'm right, and when we die it's just like being asleep, only you never wake up (but you'll never have to worry about it because you'll be dead). Or! The religious people are actually right. And then they will be able to rub it in my face, probably simultaneously as I am being tortured in the pits of Hell for all of time.

It's no fun either way.

The last point I make is with regret. Because in all honesty, I don't think the world would be a better place without religion. In my experience of Christians they tend to be kind, loving, generous people with good morals and values. In short, the kind of people I wish the world was made up of.
I wish that instead people were just Humanist, and applied those good morals and values, like courtesy, and kindness, and compassion, and politeness, without having to think that we should deserve a reward for it at the end. That is just how we should be, not what a God wants us to be.

People in general.

I've realised I should stop looking for the good in people. You get to the point where you begin to see the good in everything if you look hard enough; how many times do you hear the parents of murderers or drugdealers in prison saying things like "oh he's a good boy really, he just makes silly mistakes" or "he fell in with the wrong crowd".

I've been cutting people too much slack. Pretending they're good people. It shouldn't need clarification, it should come easy. Quite often people will say to me "person X is a bit of a prick" or something along those lines, and I'll defend them, I'll say their "heart's in the right place" or some other ridiculous cliche that can be applied to pretty much anyone if you try hard enough.

Some people are just actual knobs, covered up by a little facade of a good person that they can occasionally pretend to be. I know loads of people like this, I don't say it to their faces, but I definitely know it.

That's not to say that I don't have a high opinion of most of the people in my life, most of my friends deserve a lot better than they get. I'm gonna focus on that, I think.

For literally no reason here is some stuff about Watchmen.

Watchmen features two of my favourite superheroes. Rorschach and The Comedian, they embody what a real hero might actually be like. The difference is the Rorschach is a psychopath who is fundamentally utterly morally righteous. He does the right thing no matter what, no matter what it costs him.
The Comedian is different. He killed children. He raped women. He was the kind of scum that in any other circumstance I would hate on the utter principle of it. But he can be explained as the manifestation of a good person trying to good things who realises that the only way you're ever going to defeat evil is by being more evil than it can be.

The Comedian became everything he despised in order to make the world a better place. As he said himself "when I started out, when I was a kid, cleanin' up the waterfronts, it was like real easy. The world was tough, you just had to be tougher". In this instance he faced the bad guys and he beat them up, and that made them stop.
But the more he sees of the world he begins to realise that just punishing bad people with little things isn't going to work. If he became the worst of them all, the most feared; a superhero who didn't flinch at the idea of hurting the innocent to get what he wanted, then maybe he would be strong enough to stop the really bad people.

Rorschach and The Comedian have very little in common apart from that they are both pretty psychotic, but they both are capable of things that most superheroes are not. The Comedian did horrible things to people for the greater good. Rorschach, despite his insanity, always did the right thing, the just thing.

If I was a superhero, I think that would be the only way to be. Nite Owl II and his classic superhero : saving the world one damsel in distress at a time, just wouldn't work. He isn't tough enough to make a real difference. Silk Spectre II didn't really even want to be a superhero. And for me to say anymore would destroy the ending of the film/book for anyone who hasnt watched/read it.

I think at the end of Watchmen, we can see that the only real superhero left was Rorschach. He was the only one who would have saved you instead of the world.

Brand New: the band I love.

I've been meaning to write this for a long time. Purely for my own pleasure. In a sense, because I want to see how much I can remember.

I love Brand New. Love is perhaps too weak a word, but unfortunately our pathetically weak English language has one word to express the emotion of "love", when love can mean so many different things. Instead we start to categorise the difference between platonic and romantic love. But still that isn't enough.

I digress.

I love Brand New.
In my mind they are utterly without any sort of parallel, Jesse Lacey is an incredible lyricist, like beyond incredible, and musically, to me they are perfect. I think it's because they grew up with me. Not in the sense that I know them, but in the sense, that when I first heard their early pop-punk (almost) stuff, that was what I liked at the time.

By the time Deja Entendu was released I had grown out of pop punk, and so had they. They had become the champions of emo, and emo was my ultimate favourite style at the time. Deja Entendu is a virtually faultless album, every track is amazing, and different.
Nevertheless, when they released The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, I have a confession to make: I didn't like it.

I remember being impressed by Sowing Season, and Jesus Christ, and thinking that Archers Bows Have Broken was the standout track, and the rest, I thought, was just all a bit (and I shudder saying this now) boring and uninspired.
However, given that I had loved Deja Entendu so much, I decided to give it some more time. I had read reviews that said it was a "grower", so I'd give it time to grow.
I'm so glad I did, because Devil and God is easily the best album I've ever heard. It's a masterpiece (In my opinion, of course. My correct opinion.) Virtually every track is perfect. But I will speak on Devil and God a little later.

As with Deja Entendu, I could now see that Brand New had matured again, just as I had. No longer where their songs about heartache and failing relationships like the first album, or indeed sweepingly elegant poetry on countless subjects like broken marriages(Quiet Things That No-One Ever Knows), dying grandparents ("Guernica") and even taking advantage of drunken girls ("Me vs. Maradonna vs. Elvis").
Brand New had transcended Deja Entendu, and I didn't think that would be possible. On the surface, Deja is infinitely the better album. If you want to get into Brand New, that I'd always recommend that one, especially if you like your lyrics to be catchy and clever, rather than depressing genius.

And with Daisy, their fourth album, an album which I had such high expectations of, and they matched them! It isn't as good as Devil and God, I wouldn't even say it's as good as Deja Entendu (and Your Favourite Weapon puts up a fight too) but its different and it is amazing.

But a lot of people don't know very much about Brand New, even though the story of their career is very interesting, not least because it involves a bitter rivalry with fellow Long Island band, and former friends Taking Back Sunday, ironically enough, probably my second favourite band.

Brand New's singer Jesse Lacey was once actually in Taking Back Sunday. In the very early days, as bassist and backing vocalist. He left the band to form Brand New with friends Garrett the bassist, and Brian the drummer, teaming up with young guitarist Vinnie Accardi.
Taking Back Sunday's primary members in those days were Adam Lazarra the singer, and John Nolan, the backing-singer, guitarist, songwriter type.

John Nolan and Jesse Lacey were the best of friends, until, as legend has it, Jesse and John went to a party, at which John slept with Jesse's at-the-time girlfriend. Jesse raged at John, and there was a fight. A few days later John there was a phone conversation between the two in which Jesse yelled at John:
"Is that what you call tact? You're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back"

They would both use those words in different songs Brand New's "Seventy Times 7", and Taking Back Sunday's, "There's No I In Team". For the record, Brand New's one is much much better.
After much feuding, however, it seems that John and Jesse made up, and there are videos you can find online of Jesse playing "There's No I In Team" with Taking Back Sunday, singing his immortal words.

Happy times. However, there is a further twist in the tale.
As Brand New were writing "Deja Entendu" all was not well in the Taking Back Sunday camp, as Adam Lazarra had been dating John Nolan's sister, Michelle, when he made the perplexing move of cheating on her.
John was angry, and quit Taking Back Sunday, as did his close friend, bassist Shaun Cooper. John, Michelle and Shaun joined drummer Will Noon to form Straylight Run, who are/were also awesome.

Jesse took John's side, and so once again there was a Brand New-Taking Back Sunday hatred. One of Brand New's most popular t-shirts is in fact a dig at Adam Lazarra, bearing the slogan "Mic's are for singing, not swinging. You know who you are". Adam, of course, being famous for swinging his mic around the stage whilst he performs (a maneuver that once resulted in the hospitalisation of replacement bassist, Matt Rubano).

Nevertheless, outside of this t-shirt-based japery, there has been little TBS-Brand New waring. No copied lyrics, anyway.
I should also point out that very recently, John Nolan and Shaun Cooper have rejoined Taking Back Sunday as a reunion to the first album line up. I should also explain my disbelief that Adam Lazarra, who, to be fair, often cannot sing a note, has managed to find three enormously talented song-writer guitarists to keep him famous.

Back to Brand New.
There was a very long gap in between the released of Deja Entendu and third album "Devil and God..." and this was due to a number of reasons. The in-sleeve of the album cover can explain much of it, as you can find the names of 15 of the band member's close family and friends who passed away during the recording. And it is not helped by the fact that Brand New instilled what was essentially a full media blackout, no longer giving interviews, and removing their website from the internet.
It was revealed that Jesse had been ill, needing surgery for "multiple things wrong" with him. Many rumours circulated about clinical depression, but they appear to have been unfounded.

In early 2006, 9 demo's which have become known as the "Fight Off Your Demons" demo's were leaked onto the internet. Standout tracks amongst these were "Brothers" an utterly astounding anti war song which was a re-working of old b-side "aloc-acoC" (it's backwards to avoid copyright), "Morrisey", named because it sounds an awful lot like Morrisey, "Cleanser" and "Fork and Knife" which they later released as a single. I note that these are fan-chosen names, and not official titles (apart from "Fork and Knife"). You can find them on youtube, and Grooveshark.

Jesse was devestated by the songs being leaked, feeling that they had become useless.
2 of the demo's were recycled and turned into tracks on "Devil and God...", but the other 7 were scrapped. Jesse later revealed that he now feels bad about some of the tracks he left of "Devil and God...", as they meant so much to him.

Most of the brilliance of "Devil and God" in my opinion is found in the lyrics. They are so layered, and so deep, and so open to interpretation. They are beyond almost any lyrics I have ever heard. An opposite to the way that "Deja Entendu" spoonfed you clever metaphors and rhyming couplets, "Devil and God" makes you work hard to see the genius.

The lyrical content of "Devil and God..." is extremely dark. "Limousine" and "You Wont Know" tell the true story of Katie Flynn, a little girl on the way back from her parents wedding who was decapitated when a drunk driver going the wrong way down a motorway collided head on with the limo she was in.
Jesse has stated that this story changed his perspective on life, and pushed him away from former friends who he knew to drive drunk.

Jesse often uses religous imagery, although he is not religous anymore himself. Personally, I would say that he is agnostic, he often alludes to wanting to believe in a God, but seeing too much around to convince him that a God cannot exist, or that he would hate a God that would allow it.

On "Daisy" there is actually less overt religous reference, and I think it is a sign of his move away from mainstream religion. Grappling with his faith is one of the cornerstones of Jesse's Brand New lyrics.
Vinnie writes lyrics too, he wrote "Gasoline" and the last three tracks on "Daisy", as well as "Handcuffs" on "D&G".

I love Vinnie. He's the only good looking member of Brand New these days. Jesse would still be good looking if he tried, but for some reason his appearance is that of a man who could not care less what people think about him.
Here's the proof

A : http://www.100xr.com/100_XR/Artists/B/Brand_New/Brand.New-band-2003.jpg

B: http://www.rocksound.tv/images/uploads/brandnew1300.jpg

Exhibit A is early Brand New with Jesse in his striped top and quite clearly posing for the camera. Exhibit A is interesting too, and as for someone reason Vinnie is dressed as a French prick.

Exhibit B is current Brand New. Note that you cant really tell in his picture, but Brian, the drummer in the middle, is built like a brick-shithouse. Vinnie is on the end on the left looking sexy. And Jesse is second in from the right, wearing the most hideous shirt known to man.

Post-Deja Jesse rarely does interviews. In fact, he *never* does American interviews because he reads the music magazines and hates seeing himself in them. Brand New barely do any publicity at all in America.
And it's weird because it makes them a sort of paradox, they have gotten more and more popular the less they had promoted themselves.

It is very apparent if you watch Jesse in video interviews, especially recent ones, that he is extremely uncomfortable doing them. His answers are usually quite monosyllabic, and he often remains quiet and lets Vinnie or Brian do the talking.
He is also known for, well to be honest, making things up. When fans ask him questions about the meanings of his songs he often just lies, or says something that doesn't really mean anything.

Top 5 things I would love to know about Brand New:

1) What he actually says in the chorus of Noro
Is it "I'm on my way out", "I'm on my way down", or "I'm on my way to hell".
Have a listen, and you tell me.

2) Where did the mysterious music video for "Jesus Christ" dissapear to, and why wont they let the world see it?

3) Whether he actually said "Is that what you call tact? You're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back" to John Nolan.
I mean, that is awfully fucking eloquent for an angry phone conversation, even from Jesse.

4) Which of the Fight Off Your Demons demo's are their favourite?

5) When the fuck is album 5 coming out?

It's hope that leaves us hopeless.

I touched on the idea of optimism vs. realism before. I'm torn with optimism though, because I hate it when people are pessimistic and give you the whole "oh it will probably all go wrong, so why should I bother?" routine.
I like being optimistic, I think fundamentally because at least if you're positive about something, its more likely to happen than if you're negative about it.

Unfortunately, however, this leads to the biggest problem of optimism: hope.

Hope is also, at heart, a good thing. But the problem is that even if almost everything that you were hoping for happens, eventually it will go wrong.
It's hope that England will win the World Cup that is going to make it so gutting when we are inevitably dumped out at the quarter final stage on penalties. If we had never had that hope, that small chance of victory, then we would never have to feel bad watching our team fail.

On a personal note running along the same lines, I have to start applying for a job soon. Having (pretty much) achieved a 2.1 from my degree now, I can begin contacting the working community of Southern England begging them to give me money in exchange for me writing some eloquent prose for them.
It's the hope that you will be the one whose CV is picked up, and the readers thinks "my god he's brilliant! How have we remained in business for so long without David on our team?"
Or similar.

And it is the crushing disappointment when we recieve the, perhaps slightly differently worded: "Thank you for your interest in this position, but it has instead been filled by someone better than you in every way".

I am completely used to being disappointed, like a lot of people, I suspect. And I suppose any success I have, in any aspect of life, will likely result in the disappointment of someone else, and I never feel bad about it. Also, any disappointment I feel, is from someone else's pleasure or success.
It's a depressing thought that anyone's happiness comes likely at the cost of the sadness of others, but I think it is fundamentally true.

Realism, then, seems the way forward. Back to the job metaphor, and it is definitely a metaphor, realism announces:
It would have been brilliant to have gotten that job, but there were always going to be better people who deserved it more, so don't worry yourself.

But still hope gets in the way, because you knew, you knew all a-fucking-long that it wasnt going to happen, and that eventually you would just feel worse for failing. The tiny grain of hope kept you stupid.