Final countdown, let's go

Daesh in Middle East.
Donald Trump as US President.
The rise of Artificial Intelligence.
All in place for the final countdown to humanity’s great, big finish.
Throw in some plot-uppers – massive earthquakes, melting ice, space travel and that has me pondering; what is the future of the world I am leaving to my children?
Or, am I to be leaving my children to determine the future of this planet?
Evolutionary hubris of the general homosapien genus is creating two poles with no in-betweens.
Religion will divide. Spirituality will become the refuge.
And all the time the individual will isolate.

Ginormous 2, newspapers clicked, swiped, done...

Every newspaper conference I have attended in the last three years has tried to let newspapers know gently they are in the throes of death.

End of the newspaper era as the Gen-Xers know it.

Gen-Y are the cross-over folks, split between enjoying the feel and smell of newsprint on the pot and then, swiping the tablet on the Tube to work.

Gen-Z. Click, swipe, done.

News is now consumed continuously in feeds flowing into one big ginormus stream of information from social media, cue FB, Snapchat and the like.

The journalist, therefore, must evolve or die.

I’m dead.

LVG, di Maria, and the ginormous Asian following

Lousi van Gaal is archaic, prosaic, indulgently smart and belligerently self-assured about his football philosophy.

How many big words could I cram into one sentence?

A bit like an LVG quip when he is trying to take a dig at an interviewer.

LVG has been around a long time and so, has literally seen it all happen in the transfer market – several times over, and then some.

His take-it-as-it-comes handling of the Angel di Maria situation does ease the nerves of Manchester United’s ginormous Asian fan following.

LVG will do it with the kids if he has to. Go…

How many ways can you get nude for public viewing?

I was funky. Then, I was 40. Realisations begin to hit me like Kardashian posts on Instagram.
One is that Miley Cyrus is creating a neo, ultra, futuristic, ethno-chic, cultural bubble.
How many ways can you get nude for public viewing?
Does that reaction date me?
I scan my hard- (wink) drive and come up with Sam Fox, Pamela Anderson, Sharon Stone and Jennifer Lopez as the lusty levelers on my journey from pimples to diabetes.
None are a patch on Miley.
It’s far from sexual now. It’s a Miley statement, speaking a language that I just don’t understand.

Forward to the past

Just before dad passed away, my mum and he got an iPad. My mum has since discovered the ability to forward emails on the device.
There are emails floating out there, by the millions, that are worth forwarding, but that I do not want in my inbox.
When your mum forwards something, a conscience-like prick in your hassle-filled daily demeanour prompts you to open it.
My pop-in-law also passed and my mum-in-law on WhatsApp has discovered the forward.
Takes me back to when email first burst into our lives and forward it was.
Mums, enjoy. This too shall pass.

Dudes on the mic... McEnroe to G-Nev

What qualities must a veritable sports commentator possess?
Nous, that comes not from watching, studying, reading, following a game; but from having played it at the highest level.
Dry wit, that, which like a dry martini tingles and tangles but does not gush or slush.
A rounded voice, that allows the ears to be eased into the visual spectacle assaulting the senses.
Gary Neville has some.
John McEnroe has some.
Geoff 'my grandmum' Boycott has some.
Shane Warne… ?
Watching Wimbledon and the Ashes is as much about McEnroe and Boycott, as is watching Champions League football with G-Nev.

Ouch, Iker-Bastian reality football... must hurt

Iker Casillas to Porto and Bastian Schweinsteiger to United.

I have repeated that a couple of times this morning trying to wrap my head around it – intentionally avoiding the footballing cliché ‘like so-and-so wraps his foot…’

Both, one-club men and when you run through the stats, one-man clubs.

There is the reality of football as business (and I intentionally avoid the Blatter pun).

The European Super Clubs – Real Madrid and Bayern Munich - that birthed these two rest as much on the legacy of a great past, as on the drive for current success.

It must hurt fans. Badly.

In search of rock bottom

To the extent that money is important to me, going bankrupt will be one measure of a rock bottom.
It has never been. So I have been bankrupt four times.
To the extent that possessions are valued highly, not having them or losing them, could trigger the rock bottom clause in the contract of my sanity.
Possessions? Not really. Not really at all.
Then there are people. How badly have you destroyed relationships, savaged people’s self-confidence, wreaked havoc on their belief in life?
Above all that matters. And that rock bottom hits home the hardest, then. Killing me softly.