Stop the madness

I thought that Haggis & Black Pepper crisps were a bad idea, but these shouldn't have even made it past the test marketing.

Yes, I tried, them, and yes, they were catastrophic.

Trying to reason with football season

This post is not an attempt to explain how the game of football/futballlll/soccer is played.  That would be an exercise in futility for one as ignorant as myself.  Rather, it is an attempt to sort out how the teams work their way through the season.


The Tiers/Flights
Professional football teams in the UK are organised into a massive scheme of leagues and tiers.  In the US we have minor league baseball, but those teams are affiliated with a major league team.  In the UK, all of the teams are part of a multi-tiered system of conferences, with no affiliations between the teams.  At the top tier is the Barclay's Premiere League, the top 20 teams being ranked in a  "table."  Ranking in the table is not based on wins and losses but on points.  Every time you play, you get three points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss.  The only American sport that I can think of that uses a points system is hockey.  A points system therefore appears to be a scheme adopted by sports where a tie is common.  While the point system generally correlates to a win-loss record, it is a possible for a team with fewer wins to have more points than a team with more wins.  As I look at the league tables today, 34 games into the season, West Bromwich Albion (which sounds like a kind of mussel) has 12 wins and is ranked 13th.  The teams ranked 9 through 11 all have 11 wins, but fewer losses, so they are ranked ahead of a team with more wins.  Wigan Athletic is ranked 16th with 34 points.  This means that a team could theoretically tie all of their games, get 34 points, and be ranked 16th out of 20.  Ok, that may not be impressive, but if those ties were all 0-0 (pronounced "nil-nil"), it means that a team could be ranked 16 out of 20 without having scored a single goal all season.


Below the Premier League is the Championship League.  Below them is Football League One, and below them is Football League Two.  Given the hyperbole of the naming, surely the third tier should be called the Superstars League and League Two should be the League of the Gods.  Below them are Conference National, Conference North, and Conference South,  Below that I lose interest, but there are at least six tiers of professional football.


Promotion and Relegation
This is the fun part. At then end of the season, the bottom three teams in the Premiere League are demoted ("relegated") to the Championship League, and the top three teams in the Championship League are promoted ("promoted") to the Premiere league.  This has huge implications for revenues, contracts etc.  Some teams spend years on the bubble moving up and down from one conference to the next and back again.  This is cascaded throughout the tiers.  Imagine if the Buffalo Bills at the end of the season were shipped off to the Big 12 Conference, and the Arkansas Razorbacks were placed in the AFC North.  Presumably, the Arkansas players would have to take a pay cut.


Playoffs?  Don't talk about...playoffs?  You kiddin' me? Playoffs?
The different tiers do not have playoffs.  At the end of the regular season (which, as you will soon see, is anything but regular), the team with the most points wins the league, and gets a cheesy trophy.


But wait there's more
At the same time that these teams are playing within their leagues, they can also be playing for the FA Cup.  The FA Cup is a tournament featuring all of the teams in the top five tiers, plus some other teams who probably bribe FA officials, who are famous for their northern accents [ed: this is the moment that Daniel became a Brit] and bad comb-overs.  Here's where I get confused:  the games are scheduled amongst the League games.  So, Chelsea could play Fulham (two Premiere League teams) one week as part of the Premiere League schedule, and play them again the next week as part of the FA Cup tournament, and the FA Cup game doesn't count for the Premiere League rankings, and the Premiere League game doesn't count towards the FA Cup tournament.  The FA Cup Tournament is a proper tournament lasting 14 rounds, interweaved with the regular schedule, if there is such a thing as a regular schedule (the term here is "fixtures," which I am not going touch).  Over 700 teams are eligible for the FA Cup, which means that on any given Saturday, over 10% of the population of the UK could be playing in an FA Cup game.


At the same time, they could also be playing for the Carling Cup.  This is open to a mere 90 teams in the top -- I give up at this point - teams.  The Carling Cup tournament is typically decided about halfway through the season.  Most of the Premiere League teams view the Carling Cup games as a waste of time, and put in their second- or third-string players when a Carling Cup game comes up on the schedule.  This year, Liverpool won the Carling Cup, and are ranked 8th in the Premiere League.


Now Let's Get on an Airplane
At the same time that teams are playing for their league championships, the FA cup, and the Carling Cup, some are also playing in a pan-European tournament call the UEFA Champions League (not to be confused with the Championship League).  Last night, for example, Chelsea played Madrid -- maybe it was Barcelona --  in a Champions League game that had no bearing on their standing in the Premiere League, the FA Cup, or the Carling Cup (which was over anyway).  The top four teams in the Premiere League automatically qualify for the Champions League the following year.  For many coaches and players, they would rather win the Champions League than anything else.  Here is an exact quote from Wikipedia on how a team qualifies for the Champions League:

The number of teams that each association [from each participating country] enters into the UEFA Champions League is based upon the UEFA coefficients of the member associations. These coefficients are generated by the results of clubs representing each association during the previous five Champions League and UEFA Europa League/UEFA Cup seasons. The higher an association's coefficient, the more teams represent the association in the Champions League, and the fewer qualification rounds the association's teams must compete in.

5 of the remaining ten qualifying places are granted to the winners of a four round qualifying tournament between the remaining 39 or 38 national champions, within which those champions from associations with higher coefficients receive byes to later rounds. The other 5 are granted to the winners of a two round qualifying tournament between the 15 clubs from the associations ranked 1–15, which have qualified based upon finishing 2nd–4th in their national league.

...so stop complaining about the BCS.

We're Not Done Yet

Players on UK teams may disappear for weeks at a time to play tournaments for the national team of their home country.

York

I spent Easter weekend in York.  It's a two-hour train ride from London, through typically beautiful English countryside -- rolling hills, meadows full of sheep and newborn lambs, church steeples, and cooling towers from nuclear power plants.
My starting point was King's Cross Station, with it's impressive roof:

Arriving in the York train station:

My hotel, The Royal York, sits right next to the train station

As you enter the hotel, you see this sign above the doors, which states that the hotel is licensed in "pursuance of acts of parliament for public music and dancing."

Next to the hotel is the Wheel of York, a smaller version of the London Eye, and those giant ferris wheels that seem to be popping up everywhere

It being a rainy Friday morning, I headed across the river to my first stop, the famous York Minster, the largest medieval cathedral in Northern Europe (however you define that.)  Photos and words don't do it justice, but I'll give it a try:

The Roman Emperor Constantine was crowned here in 306 AD.  It's pretty far from Rome for that.

Inside:

I heard someone say that the stained glass windows above represent the largest "expanse" of stained glass windows in the country or world.  Not sure about that, but they are undeniably impressive.  As is the organ

Suitably inspired, I decided to take a walk along York's most famous historic feature, the Roman Walls.  As the name suggests, these walls, which still largely circle the city, were started by the Romans, and have been built up ever since, so how much is left from the Roman construction is hard to say.

Inside one tower is the Richard III Museum.  I don't have any pictures, which is a shame, because it is in the top tier of Worst Museums I Have Ever Seen.  Most of signage is hand-written on poorly-laminated index cards.  It rather beats its point to death (no pun intended), that Richard III, from the House of York, is not nearly the terrible person he is depicted to be in Shakespeare's play (not Romeo and Juliet, but Richard III).  I would have to rank this #3 in Worst Museums I Have Ever Seen, #2 being the Garden Museum in London, and #1 the Mummer's Museum in Philadelphia.

Next stop was the York Castle museum.  

Which, curiously, is doesn't teach you anything about the building it is in, which may or may not be a castle.  Instead, it is sort of a Smithsonian-recreation-of-life-through-the-ages-in York.  A series of displays -- quite a lot of them, in fact -- represent life in York through the centuries.  There's a full-size Victorian street, and also the old York jail.  The museum recommends 2 - 3 hours to see the whole thing, but it not being quite my cup of tea, I was out in about 40 minutes.
Across the street from the York Castle is something much more to my tastes, Clifford's Tower:

Now this is my idea of a castle!

As the sign says, it was built during the reign of Henry III, about whom I know nothing.  You're able to climb up to the top, where you have some great views, both inside and out.

 This is the Castle from the Tower.

 That's the Minster over there

More Minster.












The stairs were the typical stone Steps of Death that I have become used to

Next up the National Railway Museum, the largest railway museum in the world.  This was the only place I had to stand in line for, but it was very much worth it.  A few highlights...

A Japanese bullet train

The inside of a Japanese bullet train.  Notice how much headroom there is above the person standing in the aisle.










Several royal train carriages, which are suitably kitted out:

I really don't know how a telephone on a Victorian train would work, unless it's just used to call another part of the train.










There was a locomotive that was used in the construction of the Channel Tunnel

And this cutie:

You can even go into the shop where they are restoring trains

The last stop (this was still Friday) was a fun tour of the York Brewery, which consists of two rooms of equipment.  They make a pretty small amount of beer here, but the tour guide was hilarious.

 Here is something horrible fermenting.

 These are bags of barley

Here's an empty vat.  They only have two vats.












That's enough for Friday.
Saturday morning was spent at Castle Howard, which will be the subject of another post.  Returning to York around 4pm, I went to Fairfax House, which bills itself the Finest Georgian House in England.  No pics, but it is Darn Impressive, especially since all of the furniture is authentic.  Then I wandered through the streets:

Sunday morning was breakfast at the famous Betty's, which is a charming tea room with not very good food.  The queue is usually quite long at Betty's, but I got there at 9am on a Sunday, when few Brits are awake.

Next stop was the Yorvik Viking Centre, which commemorates the fact that York was for a long time a Viking settlement.  When you first enter Yorvik, you stand on a glass floor above an actual archaeological dig, although the density of objects suggests that they were collected from a variety of places and all put here.  It's extremely well-done, and the guides are eager to show you around and tell you about the objects.  Video screens tell the history of the settlement with the latest in computer imagery.
This did not prepare me for the second part of the Yorvik experience, which is The Ride.  This is a Disney-like ride in a six-person pod running on an overhead track through a recreation of a Viking village, complete with animatronic people, sounds, and even smells.  As unexpected as this was, it is really very well done.  The final section of Yorvik is a series of display cases showing objects from the Viking period, including preserved corpses, food items, weapons, and clothing.  Suffice it to say, a lot of money was spent on this, and unlike every ride at Disney, there was no evidence of a corporate sponsor (i.e., "Siemens Presents the Yorvik Ride").

Next up was York's Sweet Story, a brand-new museum about York's leading role in the British candy industry throughout the 19th and 20th century.  As with Yorvik, this is an elaborate, cutting-edge museum that teaches you all about how chocolate is made, and the history of various candy-makers (now all parts of Nestle or Cadbury's) in York.

Finally it was the Yorkshire Museum, which is a history museum of the York area.  Although relatively small, about eight rooms, it's an impressive collection, beautifully displayed.  By this time, I was getting the impression that, the Richard III Museum aside, a huge amount of public funding pours in to York, and it is rightfully one of the top tourism destinations for Brits.

Portrait of London

I've taken over 1,000 photos since I've been in London, but so far I think this is the most iconic:
Tower Bridge, framing St. Paul's and The Monument, with the sun just starting to set.

The curse of American cultural imperialism

Average length of time spent in an historical city before coming across a Disney Store:

• York:  2 hours
• Dublin:  1 hour
• Bath:  15 minutes

Curious fact about mints

In the UK you will find gum and mints in peppermint and spearmint flavours, but never in wintergreen.  Most Brits haven't even heard the term "wintergreen."   Did some research, and apparently the smell of wintergreen (chemically known as methyl salicylate) is strongly associated in the UK with either a) bathroom cleansers, or b) muscle-relaxing ointments.  Perhaps my wintergreen-scented aftershave explains why I can't get a date...