November 23, 2009

The Fallout

The France-Ireland playoff in Paris on Wednesday was memorable for both the right and the wrong reasons. You will know all about these already and there is a good chance that you  feel somewhat overexposed and perhaps even a little nauseous as a result of it all. I know that by Saturday morning I was completely over it; not the match outcome, but the moral indignation. As a nation, perhaps the only prize similar to a trip to the World Cup finals is a spot of moral outrage, of wallowing in the mire, of feeling (rightly) aggrieved. The only thing that could’ve made it better is if we had been wronged by England.

The way in which the chain of events unfolded was startling. On Wednesday night, I went to bed rather the worse for wear feeling that Ireland had – of course – been robbed of a place at the World Cup, but that as a minor football nation, nobody would really care much for the injustice which took place in Paris. The next morning (or rather afternoon – the previous night’s events inhibited the usual early start) the papers were full of it. Not only Irish newspapers, but British ones, French ones, and others across Europe. The story was becoming a real scandal. By the day’s end, it was the talk of American newspapers too, and the whole world seemed to feel that not only was Ireland wronged, but they perhaps even deserved a replay.

The online community mobilized. A Facebook group had, by the end of Thursday, taken in almost a hundred thousand members, and by the end of Friday, there were almost a quarter of a million onboard. These were not only Irish fans, but football fans from across Europe and the world. While the group began as a petition to FIFA calling on them to replay the game, the organizer had decided by Friday afternoon to hold a protest march. Hilariously, his initial proposal to march the traditional protest route in Dublin from Parnell Square to FAI Headquarters was scuppered when someone pointed out that the FAI was no longer located in Merrion Square, in the city centre, but in Abbottstown, a far flung suburb. Eventually it was decided to instead march from Lansdowne Road to the French Embassy.

By Friday afternoon, talk of a replay was everywhere. The FAI submitted a formal appeal to both FIFA and the French Football Federation, asking the latter to replay the game in the interests of sportsmanship and fair play. The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, and minister Dermot Ahern both pronounced on the subject in Ireland’s favour. Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon responded for France.

Talk of a replay never sat well with me. On Thursday I was hungover and outraged. By Friday I was annoyed and still feeling a little tender. At no point did I want a replay. I wanted vindication in the vaguest sense possible. In the back of my mind was a nagging feeling that even if Ireland did secure a replay, they’d  go back to Paris and get stuffed three nil (see the below post on Irish optimism).

What made the entire media storm even more bizarre was that people from across the sporting world and beyond chimed in, taking one side or another. This meant that by Friday, Ireland could count on the support of two members of Arsenal’s famous back four, Nigel Winterburn and Lee Dixon, as well as that of the leader of the school teacher’s union in France, as well as their Minister of Economic Affairs, Christine Lagarde. And, oddly enough, Thierry Henry. The most notable name to oppose Irish designs for a replay was Henry’s Gillette buddy Roger Federer, and Roy Keane.*

* Roy Keane’s involvement in any debate tends to kill it stone dead. When Keane pronounces on an issue, it’s the equivalent of hearing a song by a semi-obscure band who you hitherto thought were yours and yours alone being used on a TV ad for chewing gum or breakfast cereal, or, even worse, being covered by Mundy.

The whole thing quickly took on the air of farce, and by Saturday morning, I felt myself a tad embarrassed by it all. It had run its course, we’d had a good old whinge, we’d gotten our Prime Time special, and now we should move on. Which it seems we are, helped along by the fact that a number of Irish towns are currently under water and people have real problems to deal with.

So, now that the saga appears to be over, how will we look back on this? I really have no idea and no answers. I’m all done with righteous indignation.

November 9, 2009

Grin and Camembert it

Camembert_(Cheese)Ireland play France in the first leg of the World Cup qualification play-offs this weekend. Saturday’s game will be at Croke Park with the return to come on Wednesday in the Stade de France. I would not normally be one for game previews or reviews, and I don’t intend that this piece should become one, but understandably, there is quite a bit of hype about this game. Ireland have not been in such a position to qualify for a major championship in eight long years. A lot has happened in the meantime.

The Irish are, as a nation, quite a pessimistic lot. Our recent footballing experiences have served only to exacerbate this. Any country that’s been through the Reign of Terror of Steve Staunton is entirely justified in being somewhat pessimistic. The roots of Irish pessimism go much, much deeper than this, of course. There was always a sense that, even when things were going well in football terms, disaster was only just around the corner (and it generally was. Ask Packie Bonner or Terry Phelan). This is can be applied beyond football, too. Ireland is almost revelling in its newfound economic recession. It’s what we do best. So, it’s rather understandable that we go into a game against the recent(ish) World and European Champions – a team with what Jamie Redknapp would refer to as some top, top players – with some serious doubts about ourselves. It’s just what we do.

Why the hell then are the French so scared about playing Ireland? The idea seems almost bizarre. This is the team of Thierry Henry, of Lassana Diarra, of Nicolas Anelka, and Yohan Gourcuff. This is a team of world class players. And yet, be it fans or expert analysts, the consensus seems to be that France are in serious trouble of not progressing.

This is a really puzzling phenomenon, but there it is nonetheless. A recent poll on the Figaro website had the majority of French fans (55%) of the opinion that Ireland would qualify. RTL’s On refait le match, the equivalent of the Football Weekly or The Game podcasts, felt that this draw was tougher than any of the other available options (Slovenia, Bosnia, and Ukraine). Reading l’Equipe and France Football - two respected publications – there seems to be a genuine trepidation, one which is not only being peddled by French journalists, but mirrored in comments left by fans. What gives? Why are the French doing what the Irish do best?

A lot of pessimism seems to derive from a superficial reading of Ireland’s progress under Giovanni Trapattoni. The French have the utmost respect for Trap, a man with an impeccable footballing Curriculum Vitae. However, it seems that they haven’t paid that close attention to Ireland’s progress under the Italian. They know that there has been a huge improvement from the Staunton days, and being familiar with Trap’s reputation as a tactical master, they put two and two together to assume that Ireland’s startling turnaround is directly attributable to some savvy management.

This has not quite been the case, as any Ireland fan will tell you. On the one hand, an average manager could have succeeded Staunton and made Ireland considerably better, such was the decline under his, er, leadership. Secondly, Ireland’s performances have actually gotten worse as the qualification campaign progressed – with the one exception to this being the Italy home game – and Trap’s squad selection has not helped matters. Ireland have, for all their supposed progress, only beaten Cyprus and Georgia, while admittedly remaining unbeaten in their other competitive games. Tactical genius? Not quite – Trapattoni is almost endearingly outdated on this front, insisting upon a ridiculously rigid 4-4-2 formation with wingers and two central midfielders who rarely venture into the opponent’s half of the field.

The French see Trapattoni as the polar opposite of their own manager, Raymond Domenech, the bumbling eccentric who has been known to make his team selections based on the star signs of players concerned (hard luck to you, David Trezeguet). Domenech has frequently come across as clueless, making odd team selections, falling out with senior players (most recently Thierry Henry) and generally achieving underwhelming results, at best. Trapattoni, so the story goes, has the smarts and the experience to make his French counterpart look silly. Domenech, for all his flaws, has a vastly superior squad, who in ordinary circumstances would not think twice about disposing of Ireland’s finest.

So the French are cagey. What will happen? I see it going a rather specific way, actually. Ireland will come out all guns blazing at Croke Park, and give the French a fright. We (Ireland) will probably grab an early lead, have more decent chances, and live to regret not taking these as the game finishes one-nil. We’ll go to France with a specific game plan – hang on for dear life. We’ll make it to about 75 or 80 minutes at nil-nil, within touching distance of qualification, before the floodgates open, and France nab three or four late – and utterly sickening – goals. France at a canter. It’s what we do best.

October 22, 2009

Sgorio

Sgorio

It’s sometimes easy to forget how things were before the advent of, er, modernity. I know. That sentence doesn’t exactly sit right, but hang on, I’ll get to the point in a second. When I say modernity, I mean sporting modernity: the internet, blanket coverage of events from across the world on television, twenty-four hour sports news on dedicated channels, text alerts, and, in general, a much greater awareness of world sporting events (especially football) amongst the average sports fan. People can, quite literally, have whatever information they so desire about any sporting contest across the globe.

This got me to thinking – what did people do in the age before Sky Sports, in the age before Championship Manager, in the age before the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast? Now, when Ireland played Italy in the World Cup qualifiers, many Irish fans had a critique not only of the Irish team selection, but of the Italian one too. It was the same when Man Utd. played Barcelona in the Champions League final last May, or for any number of Champions League games that are broadcast on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There is so much exposure of foreign leagues that we all have a degree of comfort and knowledge in talking about them casually.

Twenty years ago, before the advent of the Premier League, the Champions League, and all the accompanying jazz, the only glimpse that people really had of these glamorous foreign teams came in World Cups, European Championships, and European club finals. A veritable footballing dark age. Unless you lived in Wales.

Or sort of near Wales.

I was fortunate enough, being a resident of Wexford (now there’s something you don’t get to say too often), to be able to receive S4C, the Welsh language version of Channel 4. S4C broadcast regional news, soaps, comedy, and ‘local cultural events’, all in Welsh. It also broadcast the cream of European league football on a show called Sgorio. Oh yes.

I watched Sgorio for as long as I can remember taking an interest in football, which would be right around the time of the 1990 World Cup. It was a show, entirely in Welsh, split into three parts. Normally, they would show highlights of games in Spain, Italy, and then another league which seems to have been decided depending on the big game of the week (often Germany, but frequently Holland, Belgium, Portugal, or France). It was an absolute revelation. I watched religiously for around twelve years, sticking with my Welsh-language companion even when better options (like Football Italia – which I did have a bit of a fling with) came on the scene.

Sgorio was wonderful because of its many eccentricities. Language is an obvious place to start, of course, and this caused frequent misunderstanding. Usually, however, it was surmountable. Football is an international language and othersuch hackneyed clichés. Sometimes, though, there would be a big scandal, or a big news story, one which couldn’t be explained by showing game footage. Extensive dialogue in Welsh which was clearly of tremendous importance was terribly frustrating – especially when it opened the show. They would flash up a picture of a player who was clearly being discussed. Had he been transfered? Suspended? There was literally no way of knowing.

Sometimes, amazingly, they managed to wrangle an interview with a big star in Spain or Italy. Now, this really was something. We knew literally nothing of these players in the normal scheme of things. So, imagine the frustration when this happened, and they overdubbed the original Spanish interview with Luis Enrique into Welsh. Soul destroying. Welsh is a pretty impenetrable language.

This was compounded on the occasions that, for no apparent reason, Sgorio showed rallying. No rhyme, no reason. Someone at Sgorio HQ clearly felt that there was an opening for a show that profiled the cream of European football, and, er, rallying. I never understood that.

Sgorio used fake crowd noises. Fake crowd noises! I also never understood why this was. They had, it seemed, legally acquired the rights to glamorous club football. Did the terms of their deal not cover the sound? Did they refuse to pay for sound so they could afford to occasionally shell out on rallying? So, whenever a goal was scored, irrespective of whether it was in front of sixty or seventy or more thousand at the San Siro, the Bernabeu, or the Nou Camp, it was accompanied by the same fake roar. This was also true if it was scored in front of a crowd of a couple of thousand at an underfunded and newly promoted provincial team. Fake crowd noises were especially hilarious during the goal roundup at the end of the show, when you heard the same fake cheer twenty or thirty times in five minutes.

Sgorio had a cult following in the South East of Ireland, and I recall that after a number of years quite a number of students in my school had a better grasp of Welsh than they did Irish. This is an exaggeration, yes, but they definitely had a better grasp of terms that actually matter at that age: ‘goal’, ’save’, ‘great skill’, and ’second half’. And, er, ‘good evening.’ I remember debuting some of these terms in the midst of a night out in Cardiff five or so years ago, and the locals seemed to appreciate it. Sgorio built bridges between otherwise foreign cultures.

Watching Sgorio, I first became acquainted with the brilliance of players like Stoichkov, van Basten, Rijkaard, Laudrup, Bakero, Luis Enrique, Ronaldo, Shalimov, Boban, and so many more. It was truly an epiphany. I never looked back. Sgorio was a gateway drug which led me to Championship Manager addiction.

So, in answer to my own question, what did we do in the days before blanket coverage of football from around the globe, the answer is this: we watched TV in Welsh, taking in epic games played to bizarre soundtracks of fake crowd noises, occasionally completely lost when they ran a feature, but glad all the while. Sometimes, we watched an hour of rallying with a Welsh commentary (not sure about the fake crowd noises) waiting for the football to start, only to realise that as the closing titles started up, there would be no football that night.

October 16, 2009

Being, Nothingness, and Paul McShane

Over the past week I attended two games involving the Republic of Ireland football team. The first, on Saturday, was against world champions Italy. Ireland played pretty well, by their low standards, and nearly won the game. For a change they went about their game with real tenacity and determination and twice took the lead. The crowd of 70,000 at Croke Park really got into the game, and the atmosphere was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

Ireland scored to make it 2-1 after 87 minutes, and for a couple of glorious moments, Croke Park went absolutely beserk. We were hugging random fans around us (including, unfortunately, one party who had sullied the previous 86 minutes with persistent flatulance), everyone was singing olé olé, and generally, it seemed like everything was going to be just fine, much like a bad film ending. The country was going to escape this recession, everyone would be employed, it would never rain again, and nobody would ever complain. Everything would be A-ok.

Italy equalised two minutes later and everyone went home feeling like they’d just witnessed a close family member be disembowled.

Then, on Wednesday, Ireland played Montenegro. This game was utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and accordingly, nothing happened. Literally. We all went through the motions together: fans, Irish team, hell, probably the Montenegrans too. Croke Park was overcome with an eerie silence for most of the contest. The ball bounced about the pitch a bit,  players ran here and there, but otherwise, nothing much happened. After about fifteen minutes the only noise to be heard was the occasional groan whenever one of our players knocked the ball out of play or gave away possession. Time seemed to drag. The mind began to wander.

It is at games like the latter that I find a very strange thought process going on. There is quite literally nothing going on out on the pitch – it was a dire game. You begin to wonder not only why you are at the game, but why there are fifty thousand zombielike people in close proximity staring at the same farce. Why am I at the game, and why am I still at the game? Why don’t I leave? Do I have free will to leave? I think I do – but why don’t I then? Why am I even on the earth? Is this even happening? Is this all some sort of Truman Show type social experiment where, when the final whistle blows, a gameshow host will jump out from behind one of the team benches to tell us that it was all done in the name of science?

Leaving Croke Park on Saturday, I was utterly defeated. We had been brought from the greatest of highs to the lowest of lows, all in the space of two minutes (and might I add, with an alarming predictability about the whole chain of events). On Wednesday, I left Croke Park utterly confused and pondering my own existence. Such is the power of football.

September 15, 2009

The Baseball Essays #1

I am, I think it is fair to say, obsessed with baseball. I mean, really. I love it. There is not an hour of my day that isn’t spent checking websites for news, stats or salacious rumours. I subscribe to MLB.tv, a wonderful online service which allows one to view all games live for the meagre cost of a tenner (or so) a month. I’ve made two pilgrimages to see my favourite team play in person, with that team being the Seattle Mariners.

I live in Ireland. That’s about six thousand miles from Seattle, which is itself a good eight hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. Doesn’t make the MLB.tv subscription look so good anymore, does it?

I read an inordinate amount of books about baseball and especially baseball statistics. I sometimes feel tempted to incorporate things I’ve read into my Phd. My history Phd. My history Phd which is based primarily in the First World War. There aren’t many parallels there (although I have found some…).

The question which I’ve asked myself so often is this: how did we get to this point? How did I get to the point where baseball came to be my number one distraction when I was raised in a culture where tens, if not hundreds of other sports come higher up the pecking order in terms of media coverage and popular participation, when I have no familial connections with the United States of America or the city of Seattle, when there are thousands of other interests which I could (or should) have but have arbitrarily ended up besotted with America’s National Pastime? How did this happen, develop, and how does my obsession manifest itself? This is what I intend to explore.

It’s not easy being a fan of the Seattle Mariners living in Ireland. Aside from the time difference – a huge impediment – I know only one other baseball fan who lives in Ireland, period. He is a Red Sox fan, the result of a summer working with a J1 visa in Boston a couple of years ago. The Red Sox are successful and fashionable. The Mariners lost 101 games in 2008 and struggle to get any mainstream media coverage even in the United States. So really, I have nobody with whom I can chat to on a day to day basis about how infuriating Miguel Batista is, or why Franklin Gutierrez is the business (he really is, by the way).

Being a fan of the Mariners is a bit of a chore. This was especially the case last year when they lost the aforementioned 101 games. Staying up until 4, 5, or 6am to watch a game which a) has absolutely no importance whatsoever  in the grand scheme of things and b) they were probably going to lose anyway, as well as poring over the box scores, game stories and analysis the next day can often lead one down the route of existentialist crisis. Why am I doing this? How many hours do I waste doing this? Seeing as just about everybody else in the world who I know is oblivious to the existence of this team and the goings on in the sport, can I be sure that it even exists or is it a figment of my imagination? And so on.

It’s all well and good to follow a successful team like the Red Sox or Yankees. It takes a very different discipline to follow a hopeless team like the 2008 Mariners on their inevitable path to futility. It made me question all of this nonsense for the first time. This questioning has continued into 2009 as, amazingly, the M’s have actually made a good deal of progress and now look to be a team who can realistically aim to contend in a couple of years time. However, I still feel the urge to develop this idea of just how I got so deep into baseball, the Mariners and the city of Seattle, and how this fandom manifests itself in the day to day existence of a history Phd student living in Ireland. Here goes…

September 9, 2009

Shenanigans in the Desert

This is an old piece which I wrote over two years ago. It’s long. The gist of it is this: I landed a gig as a journalist covering a property launch in Dubai. I knew nothing about the property world, Dubai, journalistic etiquette, or much else, and a lot happened…

‘Business’.

This was my response when the Kiwi woman seated next to me on my flight to Dubai enquired why it was that I was heading to that destination. I intoned it in such a way as to denote an asterisk next to the word ‘business’, as in reality, that was only a half truth.

True, I was going to Dubai on business: namely, to cover the launch of the Signature Property series by DAMAC, the leading luxury property developer in the Middle East, ostensibly for a national newspaper. The only inconsistency with that story is that I am not a journalist, nor did I know anything of the international property market. A friend of mine however is a journalist, and found himself unable to meet all his commitments back at the start of April – hence he asked me if I wouldn’t mind helping him out. For my part, I had quit my job at the end of March, carrying with me vague aspirations of travelling the world and a very definite dislike for the nine-to-five working world. That was pretty much all I knew.

I was told that this should be easy. Property journalists are given a detailed itinerary of what they will be expected to on these trips – which basically involves being shown the sights, wined and dined, viewing show properties, and attending launches. I would not have to worry about a thing: they would ferry me from airport to hotel to event and back again. All I had to worry about then, was my story (no, not for the paper, rather, for the property executives and other journalists. Would I make up something completely fanciful and far fetched, or just come clean straight away? I tried to concoct something suitably outrageous on the plane, but fell asleep before I got too far).

I cannot emphasise just how unprepared I was for this trip. I knew nothing of the property market, save for what I learned in Irish Times property supplement the previous Thursday. In many ways, that was all I needed to know. The stories are bland. The stories are formulaic. Every single property which they focused upon showed ‘great potential’. And that was it. If in doubt: potential.

There were a few other things which I had not considered which struck me as rather important when I heard the pilot announce that we were beginning our final descent into Dubai International Airport. First of all, did I need a visa? I certainly did not have one. Secondly, how was I getting from the airport to my hotel? While we are on that topic, what was the name of my hotel?  I put blind faith in how I imagined businesspeople are treated in such instances – there would be a guy waiting at the airport with my name on a piece of card, and that would resolve that dilemma. I convinced myself of it. And wouldn’t that just be the culmination of many childhood dreams? ‘Yes, I am Mr Irish…’ But are property journalists truly worthy of the name-on-a-card treatment?

There was no such greeting party at the airport. I waited in the arrivals hall. I scanned the names-on-cards. Nary an ‘Irish’ to be seen. I waited. I waited. I waited some more. Crowds came and went. Hours passed. I was not, it seemed, going to get the name-on-a-card treatment. More importantly, how was I going to get to wherever the hell I was going to? I would have hailed a taxi myself, only, as previously mentioned, I did not know where it was that I wanted to go. This was problematic.

I decided that my only option would be to call one of the representatives of our PR company, who were the middlemen between the journalists and DAMAC, and who were to organise our transport, accommodation, and so on, and if anything went wrong, were to be our first port of call. Something was in the process of going wrong, so I decided to give my contact a ring.

Before I could do that another problem arose. My phone did not work in Dubai. This was something I had known before I left, but in a blasé moment, I decided I would never possibly need it. There were, however, payphones in the airport. Excellent. I could use one of those. Well, I could if I had local currency. Again, that was not a problem. Out of the desert arose the oasis of ten ATM’s, side by side by side. So all I would have to do is get some local currency, break it, and then use the phone.

Did I mention that I was horrendously unprepared for this trip? What was the currency conversion in the United Arab Emirates? I decided to play it safe, figuring that I may need cash at a later date, and take out the second smallest amount displayed. An Irish ATM would list €40 as the second smallest amount. Fine. I could make a call, and still have enough cash for future unforeseens – such as paying for my taxi. The second smallest amount listed on the ATM was six hundred dirhams. So I took that out. Next task was to break this, so I could have change for the payphone. I duly went and bought a can of coke. During this transaction I realised that something was amiss. The coke cost me one dirham. I had six hundred. How much cash had I taken out of the ATM exactly? I later discovered that it amounted to something in the region of one hundred and fifty euro. Ouch. Adding insult to depleted bank balance, now that I had change, it became apparent that the public phones actually required pre-bought cards to make a call…

Fast forward twenty minutes, and, call-card purchased, and call to my PR contact made, I waited for my lift. He was apologetic, explaining that there should have been someone waiting for me at the airport for the past two hours, and that he would arrange for someone to pick me up as soon as was possible. I told him that I was by the public phones in the arrivals area, where I would wait, as he promised to call me back at that phone to confirm everything was in order. After fifteen minutes I hear a voice behind me telling me: ‘your transport has arrived.’ Phew.

Only it hadn’t. The twenty year old, battered saloon did not resemble a taxi which you would expect ‘the leading luxury property developer in the Middle East’ to hire. The driver had to clear a space on the passenger seat, and bizarrely, was parked in the long term car-park, fifteen minutes from the airport terminal, and the lines of taxis. Having initially played along and confirmed that he was there to pick me up, that he had been talking to my PR contact, and so forth, my Bangladeshi driver finally admitted that none of the above was true. He was an opportunist, who evidently overheard my phone conversation, and was now playing as my hired transport to the hotel. And he was going to fleece me. During the drive to my hotel (which fortunately, I had finally been provided the name of) we talked about two things. Firstly, how all the registered taxis would charge upwards of eighty or ninety American dollars for the same journey. Sure. Secondly, we talked about cricket. Getting a little exasperated at his constant reference to the ‘good rate’ he was giving me (at sixty euro!) I continually made reference to how Ireland had recently beaten Bangladesh at the Cricket World Cup. However, Bangladesh were beating Ireland at this game. I was just happy to finally arrive at my hotel, and so paid him the sixty euro he insisted upon, but made sure that he issued me with a receipt. Which he did. At least I knew I was getting fleeced.

***

I felt rather embarrassed checking into the hotel, the Park Hyatt. I was embarrassed because I could not quite fathom what I had done to deserve such a luxurious abode for the weekend. I was more used to hostels where you were lucky if someone wasn’t sleeping in your bed when you returned at night. My idea of luxury was clean sheets. Not this. My room had French windows at one end which opened onto my ‘private’ garden. That in turn extended onto a public promenade, which lead to a marina, mooring yachts of the great and the good. All within thirty seconds stroll of my hotel room.

I slept for most of the afternoon. Our first assignment would be that evening, although it was billed as an informal dinner, before ‘work’ proper began the following morning. During the course of the afternoon, the phone rang. It was one of the other journalists on the trip, from the Telegraph in London. Her first question threw me rather: ‘I don’t normally cover property, are these things normally this badly organised?’ ‘I … um… don’t normally cover property either … it does seem pretty shambolic.’ I still was not sure whether it was better pretending to be a journalist or not, although once I’d established that we were the only two native English speakers on the trip, that both of us were not ‘property people’, and that both of us were cynics, it seemed pretty safe to give up the pretence.

Before I left Ireland, I had been told that the launch was an international affair; that it should be easy enough to be inconspicuous if necessary, and that it would not be all ’strictly business’ (journalist code for ‘there may be a piss-up’, I think). The launch was an international event, however, the only problem was that all the other journalists were from the greater Middle East region: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, India, and Kazakhstan. None were English speakers. And there didn’t seem much prospect for the aforementioned ‘piss-up’, either. Not that it was on the cards at any point, as the Chairman of DAMAC was a strict Muslim who had stipulated, on hearing that there were British journalists coming, that there was to be no drinking (bizarrely, he later recanted and put aside a budget of thirty thousand dirhams to get us drunk, as long as it was done privately, but I certainly did not get see my three thousand euro’s worth of whiskey).

Our first assignment was that evening. I waited in the hotel lobby for the rest of the group with some trepidation. Having established that all but one of them spoke English, I realised there was not much hope of idle chat. We were herded into a limousine straight out of My Super Sweet Sixteen which took us to our evening appointment, at a beautiful resort deep in the Arabian desert. Having been told that this would be an informal dinner (I presumed, just for the journalists), I dressed informally: Campers, jeans, a casual shirt, and a blazer – just to be on the safe side. I was not on the safe side. First of all, the dinner was anything but a casual affair – it was not just for the journalists, but also for DAMAC top brass: Chair, Chief Executive, and assorted directors and hangers on, all dressed in immaculate suits. Also, DAMAC’s star attraction was present: Ivana Trump, the property company’s ‘patron’ (complete with burly bodyguard shadowing her) was doing her bit for the corporate cause.

This threw me. What threw me more was being introduced to each and every one of these people, and having to exchange pleasantries, and business cards, with them. Naturally, not being a businessperson, a journalist, anything remotely important, I did not possess a business card. Fortunately, my colleague from London had forgotten hers, so I used the same excuse. I did spy one of the DAMAC top brass, an Arab clad in traditional dress, looking me up and down as we exchanged pleasantries, as if to say: ‘how did this guy get in?’ But the important thing was that I was in. I even managed to feign comprehension of international air travel timetables, as Ivana recited her favourite means of traversing the world. I nodded knowingly. Yeah sure, I’ve flown business class from New York to Dubai. All the time Darling, all the time.

The lavish meal passed without event. I stayed close to my English speaking colleague from London and a German DAMAC executive, who appeared to be the only person there who was not fluent in corporate speak, and dare I say it, had a little charisma. He was probably new. Everyone else can only be described as a corporate drone, unable to comprehend any deep or critical way of viewing the astronomical rate and scale of development in Dubai. If it was not in a company press release, they did not want to talk about it. This was, I suppose, understandable, but it made for slightly disarming conversation over three hours deep in the desert. Having made some polite chit chat with Ivana over the buffet, the rest of the evening passed without event.

***

The following morning was an early start: 7.30am, as this day I had ‘work’ to do. Again I agonised over what to wear. I would be working, but it is not real work, is it? I won’t have to look presentable, will I? I had not packed particularly well in any event, so it was my civvies or my suit, and even at 7.30am it was like an oven outside, so that made my decision for me. Again with the jeans, campers, and a casual white shirt. After waiting in the lobby for well over half an hour for our PR people to pick us up, our transport arrived. Again, we were ushered into the tacky limousines – they’re taking us everywhere in these things? – and set off for our assignment in Dubai Marina, about an hour from the hotel.

The morning’s work was pain-free and easy. We were taken to a couple of DAMAC show apartments located at the top of one of their towers at the marina. From our vantage point on the 36th floor, we had a wonderful view of our surrounds: Dubai Marina, the famous Palm Jumeirah, the Persian Gulf, but above all, construction work. Everywhere you looked. The DAMAC show apartment was covered in a fine coat of dust, not sand blowing in from the desert, but dust from the endless development works being undertaken all around. Dubai Marina is impressive enough from a distance: tens and tens of (relatively) aesthetically pleasing tower blocks surrounding a man made marina, where we were told, the real great-and-good moor their yachts. However, a ridiculous amount of construction work surrounds it, accompanied by the constant din of drilling, hammering and trucks being driven from site to site. Ultimately, Dubai Marina will be home to upwards of 250 towers: it will be Manhattan, transplanted to the desert.

One thing which is striking about talking to not only property executives, but ordinary people in Dubai, is the extent to which they have bought into the materialistic culture of oneupmanship there, and specifically, the constant building: taller, bigger, more luxurious, quirkier, more innovative, more beyond comprehension. In Dubai, anything is possible. DAMAC’s CEO, admitted as much to me, claiming that ‘anything goes’. What is interesting is that this seems to be mutually accepted; probably not surprising as 90% of the population there are expatriates, who have migrated to Dubai in the past five years to live the materialistic dream. One hears curious conversations where people will reference certain iconic developments like any other landmark. Fine, only for the fact that these developments do not exist as of yet. Business Bay, Palm Two and Palm Three, all of these are purely notional at the moment. However, once the computer generated images appear in the newspapers, and once the apartment space is snapped up, these become part of the landscape, even if only in the mind’s eye. In Dubai, most photos of the surrounds tend to be computer generated.

Having viewed the show flats, my next assignment was a bit tougher: DAMAC were officially launching their Signature Residences, which was the whole reason that I was in Dubai. Here I would have to again feign being a journalist. Once more this proved surprisingly easy: we were given a detailed press release, with all the information I could possibly need, and thus could sit at the back of the press conference and not ask a question. What can one possibly ask at such an event? I soon found out. The Pakistani representative went first: ‘What plans have DAMAC for Pakistan?’. Next went the Indian hack: ‘What plans have DAMAC for India?’ The Egyptian journalists asked something similar. As did the Kazakhs.

Myself and the Telegraph journalist noticed an interesting trend while we were there, namely, that the other hacks on this trip seemed to be much more in awe of everything which was put in front of them by our hosts, and much more ’straight’ in how they viewed things there. For example, see the questions they asked at the press conference. This was more evident however, in how the PR company dealt with us and them. I got the impression that our hosts in the PR agency (an Indian who was brought up in the United States, and a Lebanese national) were weary of dealing with people from the surrounding region who were one dimensional in their outlook, and lacking in cynicism. Thus, whenever we were separated from the group, our PR guides were always eager to illuminate the underbelly of Dubai for us; telling us of predicted gloom in the property boom, of possible government legislation inhibiting developments from 2010, of the terrible working conditions experienced by those working menial jobs, and of the unhappiness felt by many residents with the constant clatter of construction. The Dubai they presented to the group was the Dubai of the computer graphics whereas privately one of them likened it more to the computer game Sim City.

This was a cultural phenomenon, which manifested itself in another way. Our PR minders seemed to view us, as ‘British’ journalists, as somehow more important than the rest of the pack. Thus, myself and the Telegraph correspondent were constantly being approached during our stay and asked if there was anyone there who we would like to formally interview, while the other journalists were overlooked. You come from the West, ergo, you must be writing important stories. Nothing could be further from the truth. Guys, I’m student who is between jobs, bored, and here for the laugh. After the press conference, DAMAC’s head of PR came over to me and asked if I wanted to interview their CEO. Due to boredom (what exactly was our drinking budget spent on?) I agreed to it. I was, at the time of the invitation, stuck at a dining table with an Egyptian journalist, who was tortuously trying to explain to the Kazakhs (via an Ukranian interpreter) that life under Communism must have been terrible.

Interviewing someone assumes that you have questions to ask. What do property journalists ask, anyway? A quick brainstorming session later, I went into battle, armed with four questions. The CEO was a rather stern Scottish man, very measured and often curt in conversation, but always smiling as he spoke, which I found rather disarming. With a bluetooth headset permanently attached to his ear, he had something of the Bond villain about him. My first question: what was the conception behind the Signature Residence series, and how did it evolve? I thought I would get plenty out of that. However, he had a tendency to finish a thought very abruptly, which was what he did here, leaving me clambering desperately to gather my thoughts. I don’t want him thinking I’m horrendously unprepared. I was. I flailed about with a couple of other generic questions for the next fifteen minutes: what was DAMAC’s vision for Europe? You’re not interviewing George Marshall here. He was more than happy to switch into corporate, schmoozy speak here. Ireland is great. Wonderful country. Great people. Model economic development (Ha!). I went with it. I hope he doesn’t notice I’ve stopped writing. After maybe twenty minutes in total, that was it. I had four pages of notes, scrawled down hastily. All pretty irrelevant.

***

The main event was on that evening. This was to be a black tie gala ball launch party for the Signature Residences. In fact, the only advice I was given before my trip was that I should bring a tuxedo. At least I would be appropriately dressed for this one. When we gathered in the lobby to depart for the event, however it appeared that I was the only one of our group to adhere to the dress code (specified by Ivana no less, in a ridiculous invite that was left in our hotel rooms). In fact, most of the hacks took it as a queue to dress down. Their work here was done. My friend from the Telegraph took the opportunity, being a fashionista, to don her glad-rags, so at least the two of us were in the same boat.

The event itself was as over the top as one can imagine. Staged at Dubai Media City, it was styled like a Hollywood film premiere: there was a red carpet entrance, complete with faux press photographers pretending to snap the ‘celebrities’ as they made their way by; and then a (non-alcoholic) open air drinks reception by the show apartment – a chance for the hoi polloi to hobnob and be snapped by the (this time real) local media. In truth this was rather boring. We were  disappointed at the lack of real celebrity (apart from Ivana’s obligatory appearance) and, of course, the lack of booze. This reception was a precursor to the main event, but it dragged on for so long that myself and my friend from the Telegraph found ourselves thinking of escaping. However, leaving would have involved making our way back down the red carpet, past the faux photographers and the DAMAC drones – not a good idea, all in all. Especially given the Bond-villain qualities the corporation seemed to pride themselves upon.

However, in the midst of this plotting, we were stopped a number of times by local photographers to be snapped for their respective rags. I can only imagine this was because we were well dressed, young, and western – where as the majority of ex-pats there were in the fifty-plus age bracket, we stood out somewhat. So I had the bizarre fortune to be photographed by Hello’s Middle East edition. Whether the photos ever appeared in the rag is another story…

The main event was a huge open air gala dinner for more than two hundred people. DAMAC organised entertainment for this, although again, we were rather underwhelmed. The Dubai Philharmonic Orchestra backed up various opera singers and stage stars, all of whom we had never heard of. The singers all gave rather affected ‘impassioned’ performances which added to the surreal feel of the night. Yet the crowd seemed to lap it up. The music was interspersed with self-congratulatory speeches by DAMAC top brass. All rather boring and drawn out.

My friend from London had to catch an early morning flight – so she had ample excuse to leave early, and arranged a taxi with the PR guy. I feigned a headache, and he seemed to ‘understand’ straight away what I was getting at, and agreed that I could leave too. The look on the face of the Kazakh journalists as we left was priceless. How the hell did they manage to escape this dross? But escape we had.

Before heading our separate ways, our PR contact informed me that there was a taxi organised for me to the airport the following morning. Suitably reassured, I said my goodbyes and made my way to bed.

The taxi never showed up.

The airline lost my luggage on the way back.

August 7, 2009

How to solve the problem of the list of 104 names

BudSo, there is a list of 104 names of MLB players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003. The tests, which were done simply as an anonymous survey to see the extent of the steroid problem in baseball, were meant to be destroyed afterwards. Earlier in the year, the name of Alex Rodriguez was leaked, and last week it emerged that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz’s names were also on the list.

This is highly embarrassing for Major League Baseball and the player’s union. Names will continue to be leaked, and the saga will drag on and on. So. What to do? This is what we do. Release all the names.

Release all the names.

Release all 104 names in a gala event at Major League Baseball’s headquarters. Use the same mock baseball stadium studio set that they use for the amateur draft. Have Commissioner Bug Selig come to the podium every three minutes to announce the next name on the list. The MLB network guys can set up a desk beside the podium where they can do a quick breakdown of each announcement as it comes. “So, Harold Reynolds, Richard Hidalgo goes at number four, and that really is no surprise. Your thoughts?”

And make it into a lottery.

Think about it: how to turn the biggest negative in baseball’s recent history into a positive? Easy: print lottery tickets, using a list of all players to make an appearance in the majors in 2003 (Baseball Reference tells me that it’s 1,707). Sell tickets at ballparks across the country, give a percentage to an anti-drug charity, put up a jackpot of $3 or $5 million, and bring the smile back into baseball.

Each ticket would have the name of eight or ten major leaguers who were active in 2003 printed randomly on it. Whoever buys a ticket with ten positives wins the jackpot. There can be lesser prizes for those matching nine or eight names too. And just think of the positive (sorry to keep using this word) spin that the players can put on things. The ten ‘winning’ players could present the jackpot winner with his oversized novelty cheque. Raffy Palmeiro and mates would be all smiles for the camera. “Yeah, whatever happened in the past happened, but I’m just glad to be able to help a small farmer from Indiana send his two daughters to college” (Bret Boone, allegedly).

An alternative to using the draft format would be to have an awards show theme: each name is announced by a special guest (the more C-listers the better), who comes through the red carpet with a sealed envelope in their hand before revealing the latest name. There can even be a little tease blurb before they reveal the name. “This native of Wichita, Kansas, posted an ERA of 2.74 in 2001 and was once traded for Ivan Rodriguez. Yes, come on down, Kyle Farnsworth.” (NB: purely for argument’s sake: I took Farnsworth’s name off the top of my head and there is no reason to believe he juiced until Dustin Diamond opens the golden envelope live on the MLB network).

Either one of these formats would have it all: suspense, glamour, celebrity, and potential financial windfall. Is there redemption? Not really, but Major League Baseball would be as well served to acknowledge these things happened, have some fun with it, and move on.

June 29, 2009

Beginning

This is not my first attempt at writing a blog (or do you keep a blog? Run a blog?). Around a year ago I first set one up. The idea was that, seeing as one of the bigger obsessions in my life was, and still is the fate of the Seattle Mariners baseball team, I would write about them. My slant was that I live in Ireland, have no connections to the city of Seattle, and by rights should know better than to follow a team who play the majority of their games at 4am Irish time (and weren’t very good either).

I called the blog ‘There’s only one Sean Green’, hoping to mix British/Irish sporting sensibilities with American ones. ‘There’s only one…’ being a popular football chant, and Sean Green being a mediocre relief pitcher with the M’s who nearly shared his name with another major league player (the recently retired Shawn Green). Funny eh? Predictably enough, I didn’t get much further than the hilariously clever title. Green was traded away from the M’s over the winter: a sign from the gods, surely. In retrospect, I would have been better served to go on some sort of Cluedo riff, seeing as one of Green’s compadres in the M’s bullpen was Sean White. Alas, it would’ve required a trade for Sean Plum (PhD).

I have always enjoyed writing, and I have always written. And I still wanted to maintain (better) a blog. So failed blog experiment number two was ‘No more than they deserve’ (a favoured and somewhat clichéd turn of phrase employed by a number of football commentators, and in particular, George Hamilton). I envisaged that this would satirise the media coverage of the world of sport, and particularly, football. The clichés, the ridiculous level of ‘analysis’ which fans of British football are subjected to, and the self perpetuating myths. Being a huge fan of Deadspin and FireJoeMorgan, it seemed that this was one area where American sports coverage differed from its counterpart across the Atlantic: it was more self aware. In the event, having posted on a semi-regular basis for perhaps nine months, I got tired of feeling compelled to have a new ’slant’ on current events every week. Not that there was a huge number of readers, but there was a trickle of regulars at one point (including randoms off the internets who aren’t my friends in real life!). The point was I enjoyed writing but not feeling obliged to comment on day to day events which really were not that interesting in and of themselves. Time to move on.

So here I am. I like writing, so I have started this blog. There is no theme, no agenda, no compunction to comment upon events or put my slant on things in the news. I shan’t restrict myself to sports. I simply want to write. That’s all. I may write about football. I may write about the Mariners. I may write about how somebody stepped across me this morning and put me in a bad mood for the day. I may write about history, or celebrity, or why I like tea, or why soup is a great hangover cure, or why The Dictators are one of the greatest bands ever, or how I surmounted my fear of wearing shorts, or why I’ll never get Harry Potter, or why I dislike Canada, or what biscuits are underrated. Or overrated. I’m not setting any limits this time. I will maintain this blog.