Diego

Soccernet have a great story up, where they look at Diego Maradona's troubled tenure as Argentina coach. I can't help thinking that the best coaches – Mourinho, Ferguson, Van Gaal, Hiddink, Benitez, Wenger – weren't great players... and despite a few notable exceptions (Cruijff, Beckenbauer), the greatest players don't necessarily make great coaches.

It's a lesson few sports teams seem able to learn.

Bitter

Indexed puts it in perspective.

Codex

I'm busy reading (or audiobooking) The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco, and it's just as good as I had hoped it would be. (Much better than the movie, which I also enjoyed.) It's all about 13th-century monks and books and weird stuff... and that's had me thinking about the creepy Codex Gigas.

The Codex Gigas is an enormous 13th-century manuscript (like, a metre tall), with beautiful script...



... and fine illumination ...



... and it carries on like that through page after page of Old Testament, New Testament, Josephus's Antiquities, Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, a necrologium...



... until, out of nowhere, on page 290, it has a massive cartoon picture of a snarling green devil man.



Spooky.

Spookier still, its script is entirely uniform, and it appears to be the work of a single hand – even though it would have taken 30 years to write.

The legend goes that the monk had broken his vows, and was sentenced to be walled up alive. In order to gain indulgence/forgiveness, he vowed to write, in one single night, a book containing all human knowledge.

Around midnight he realised he could not complete the work alone, so he make a Faustian pact with the Devil, asking the Prince of Darkness to complete the book in exchange for his soul.

[Please insert your own creaking door and ghostly howls here. And also please imagine me telling the story with a flashlight shining up from under my chin.]

Cover Up

The nominees are up for The Maggies – a smartly-named award for the best British magazine covers. Looking through the list, there are some great ones and some arb ones... and I couldn't help wondering whether any of them would have passed the mandatory Media24 requirement of slapping your entire Contents page onto the cover (because, y'know, the more coverlines the better).



I'm weird like that: I prefer the approach of The New Yorker or the old George Lois-era Esquire, where your cover is like a stand-alone work of art.



Of course, these covers are pretty and all... but I don't know if they'd make me want to buy the magazine. Which I suppose is where the unwritten coverlines rule comes in.

Copy/Paste

Guardian blogger Roy Greenslade has a post up (which, in an irony that will soon become apparent, he lifted from elsewhere) on 10 Ugly Truths About Modern Journalism. As good as it is, I'm not going to reproduce the list here (my Copy/Paste tool isn't as sharp as Roy's), but I can comment on three of the entries:

6. Some journalists use Wikipedia
That should say "all" journalists. Trust me.

8. Many journalists have side projects
That should say: "Most journalists cannot afford to not have side projects." A mid-level salary in publishing is like an entry-level salary in commerce.

2. Many stories are not copy edited
This is especially true for online news. But you want to hear the scariest part? The editors at some online news outlets (coughNews24cough) actually take great pride in the fact that their stories are not spell-checked, grammar-checked, or – get this – fact-checked before they're published. Hence all the unapologetic "President Is Shot / Wait, No He's Not / OK Maybe He Is / No, We Were Thinking About Some Other Guy / OK Nobody Got Shot / How Do You Spell President Again?" stories.

Wabbit

It pays homage (and I want you to read that in a faux French "ommage" way) to the operas of Richard Wagner, it pays tribute to Der Ring des Nibelungen, it was the first cartoon short to be deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and it's been rated as the greatest cartoon of all time. It is What's Opera, Doc?, and it is completely insane.

Consider this your cultural learning for the day.

Senior Management

A while back, the Washington Post ran a wonderfully-told story on Washington City Paper, an alternative weekly newspaper which – whether you live in DC or not – has some damn fine articles on offer.

I did, however, have to chuckle when Slate's David Plotz – one of City Paper's alumni – recalled in a recent Gabfest podcast that City Paper used to have "many senior editors, who were senior to no-one and who edited nothing".

I'm going to use that line over and over.

Scapegoat

It may be from 1999, but this Dilbert strip still works for me.

Bundesliga

It's down to business in the Champions League, and Soccernet have an excellent preview up. I fear it could end in tears for my teams: Liverpool, Barcelona and Ajax (who didn't even qualify, so it's tears already).

But something I can't help noticing is the healthy representation of German clubs.

The Bundesliga is – hands down – the most entertaining top league in Europe... and not just because Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger says so. The German championship is often, scarily often, decided on the last day of the season.



Take a look at this run-down of final-day Bundesliga finishes since I started watching soccer in 1990:

1991/92
1. VfB Stuttgart 21-10-7 +30 52pts
2. Borussia Dortmund 20-12-6 +19 52pts
3. Eintracht Frankfurt 18-14-6 +35 50pts

VfB Stuttgart won the title on goal difference after beating Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 with a goal scored (by a defender, Guido Buchwald) with just two minutes of the season left to play, after going a goal down and having one of their key players sent off. They had to win the game: second-placed Dortmund were beating Duisburg 1-0, and could have edged Stuttgart on goal difference... if they'd won 12-0. But that was never going to happen. Frankfurt could have spoiled both teams' parties, but they lost 1-2 (to a last-minute goal, of course) at Hansa Rostock. Had Frankfurt won, they'd have won the title on goal difference. To give you a proper idea of how mental this season finale was, consider this: at the start of the last game of the season, the top three were: Frankfurt-Dortmund-Stuttgart. With three minutes of the season to go, the top three were: Dortmund-Frankfurt-Stuttgart. It ended (as you'll see above) Stuttgart-Dortmund-Frankfurt.


1992/93
1. Werder Bremen 19-10-5 +33 48pts
2. Bayern München 18-11-5 +29 47pts

Werder Bremen won the title by one point after beating Stuttgart 3-0, but only because of what happened to title rivals Bayern Munich. Bayern had to beat mid-tablers Schalke, but were 2-1 down with 16 minutes of the game (and the season) to play... but they then scored twice to go 3-2 up (giving them a +30 goal difference, which was the same as Bremen's, but Bayern would have won the title by having scored more goals)... but then they had a player sent off and conceded a goal, meaning they could only draw 3-3... which wasn't enough to win the championship.


1993/94
1. Bayern München 17-10-7 +31 44pts
2. 1. FC Kaiserslautern 18-7-9 +28 43pts

Bayern won the title by one point after beating Schalke 2-0 on the last day of the season – but Kaiserslautern finished just one point behind them after scoring two goals in injury time to record a frantic (but futile) 3-1 win over Hamburg.




1994/95
1. Borussia Dortmund 20-9-5 +34 49pts
2. Werder Bremen 20-8-6 +31 48pts

Dortmund won the title by one point on the last day of the season after a routine 2-0 win over Hamburg. But – of course – that's only half the story. If Dortmund had only won 1-0, and if Bremen had managed a draw against Bayern, both Dortmund and Bremen would have finished on 49 log points and +33 goal difference. As it turned out, though, Bremen somehow contrived to lose 1-3.


1999/2000
1.FC Bayern München 22-7-5 +45 73pts
2. Bayer 04 Leverkusen 21-10-3 +38 73pts

Bayern took the title on goal difference after beating Werder Bremen 3-1 on a dramatic final day of the season. Leverkusen would have won the title if they'd only drawn against vowel-free nobodies SpVgg Unterhaching... but they lost their minds, and the game 0-2.


2000/01
1. FC Bayern München 19-6-9 +25 63pts
2. FC Schalke 04 18-8-8 +30 62pts

Schalke knew that they had to beat Unterhaching (those guys again) on the last day of the season, and then hope that Bayern would somehow stuff up their final game at Hamburg. This being Germany, Schalke were of course 0-1 down after four minutes. They managed to turn a 0-2 scoreline into a more respectable (bust still not good enough) 2-2, but then Unterhaching scored again to make it 2-3 with just 20 minutes of the game (and the season) remaining. Schalke finally pulled up their socks and scored three goals in the last 17 minutes to record a handsome 5-3 win... and the celebrations started when Bayern conceded a last-minute goal at Hamburg. Schalke win, Bayern lose, Schalke win the title. Right? Nein. Bayern scored a crazy goal in the fourth minute of injury time to scrape the draw, the point and the championship.


2001/02
1. BV 09 Borussia Dortmund 21-7-6 +29 70pts
2. Bayer 04 Leverkusen 21-6-7 +39 69pts
3. FC Bayern München 20-8-6 +40 68pts

Going into the last day, Bayern knew they had to beat Hansa Rostock, and then hope that both Leverkusen (at home to Hertha Berlin) and Dortmund (at home to Werder Bremen) lost their games. This being Germany, anything's possible, so you couldn't blame Bayern for playing their lederhosen off and going into a 3-0 lead against Hansa. But when news filtered through from the other two title hopefuls, Bayern gave up and sulked off with just a 3-2 win and no shiny trophy. That's because Leverkusen beat Hertha 2-1 to set up a dramatic championship triumph... which didn't happen, because – despite going 0-1 down at Werder – Dortmund recovered to win 2-1 (the winner coming, of course, with just 16 minutes of the season left to play) to take the title by one beautiful punkt.



2008/09
1. VfL Wolfsburg 21-6-7 +39 69pts
2. FC Bayern München 20-7-7 +29 67pts

Last season's final Bundesliga table shows an eight-point spread over the top five teams – which, with each team playing 34 games and with three points being awarded for every win, means a competition that's about as tight as the shorts soccer players used to wear in the 1980s. Thoroughly deserving Wolfsburg eventually won the title by a massive two points, but they did so by scoring 10 goals in their last two matches... and by beating Werder Bremen 5-1 on the final day, rendering meaningless Bayern's 2-1 win at third-placed Stuttgart.


So you can keep your English Premiership. The Bundesliga is where it's at.

Suggestions

Another day at the office then...

Wiley

New York magazine have a superb gallery of portraits by Kehinde Wiley. Wiley's work is amazing: he remasters the Old Masters by replacing the old white dudes of the originals with young African-Americans and hip-hop artists.



Albrecht Dürer has never been so street.

Goat Sucker?

I'm laughing my gringo head off. And I didn't even know what a chupacabra was...

Lateral

The new NFL season is upon us... and I'm warming up by watching, re-watching, and forcing everybody who works in the same office as me to watch, the incredible play by Trinity University against Millsaps College.

It happened two years ago, and it still brings a tear to my cheek.

This angle is the best...



but this angle shows how deep in their own territory the Tigers were when the play began.



You've got to love the bit where the commentator shouts, with some understatement: "That might be the most sensational, incredible ending in all of Division Three."

The play is just incredible – and I've never been able to watch rugby the same way again. (I keep yelling "play a lateral!" instead of "pass the ball!") You obviously won't find this in any playbook... as this excellent SlateV clip demonstrates.

Slavery

We have three unpaid interns working in the office at the moment. I think the bean-counters in the boardroom are liking the idea of cost-free labour...

Powers

There's a great piece up at Cracked on the Five Superpowers You Didn't Know Your Body Was Hiding From You.

Sample paragraph: "We're kind of pissed that we can't seem to just summon the super strength at will. Wouldn't that mugger have been surprised if you had thrown him across the street into a plate glass window? But we suppose if science found a way, the muggers would know how to do it, too. Man, that would make for some awesome fights though."

Sounds like another instant classic.

Cradle

Roll over, Piltdown Man. A new paleontological discovery has... erm... discovered that Africa might not be the sole Cradle of Humankind.

That's right, caveman fans: a 1.8-million-year-old has been unearthed in Georgia, suggesting that Early Man did not, in fact, come out of Africa alone... and if Early Man did, then he at least took a holiday in Eurasia for a while in between.

"The question is whether Homo erectus originated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migration?" some guy called Professor Lordkipanidze says in the story. "This idea looked very stupid a few years ago, but today it seems not so stupid."

Psht. Racist.

Elephant

The 10-day Hindu festival of Ganesh Chaturthi has just finished, and The Big Picture was, as always, there to document it. The festivities are incredibly colourful, and it all ends on the day of Anant Chaturdashi, when murtis of Ganesha are immersed in (it says on Wikipedia), the most convenient body of water.

Looking at the pictures in the gallery (especially the ones of the immersed murtis), it looks like one huge, massive, fun party.

Food

I'm hungry. And it doesn't help that I just found a feature at Epicurious.com, where they list their best recipes with five or fewer ingredients. Seriously, you can't go wrong with a Chunky Lemon Applesauce, which requires just three ingredients.

And I'm sure that even I cannot stuffy up Poached Eggs, where all you need is 1 teaspoon vinegar and 4 very fresh large eggs.

Go have a look at their mouth-watering list of recipes. I'll be back after lunch.

Color

I just got my hot little hands on the first five seasons of the sketch comedy show In Living Color. Man, it's got some funny stuff.

Apart from regular favourites like Homey D. Clown, and any time James Carrey (Jim before he was Jim) or Damon Wayans appear on screen, there are a couple of really funny once-offs.

Like this "We Are The World" spoof. Pure genius.

Bad Command Or File Name

A recent New York Times On Language column spoke about how the word "FAIL" has crept into the vernacular (or the parlance of our times, or whatever linguists call it). Somebody then wrote a letter claiming that its modern origins come from the old DOS command "Abort, Retry, Fail?", which I remember as being "Abort, Retry, Ignore?".

I was thinking that my memory was doing an Epic Fail, until I discovered "Ignore" was the old-old system. Which is, I guess, a Minor Scale Fail.

The Business End

The funny folks at Football365 have a handy 2010 World Cup Qualifying guide up, which – with the next round of games already upon us – will have to be updated in a few hours' time. The Preliminary Competition (or whatever FIFA want to call it) is reaching a very interesting stage now, with Brazil and Ghana having joined the list of countries who'll be at next year's World Cup... and Portugal, Argentina and Nigeria looking pretty much doomed.

If you're following the action (and European Group 1 or the Concacaf League of Nations are two good places to start), I suggest you take a look at the Wikipedia page, where they list all the permutations and pernambulations (which is, I swear, a word I once heard used on SuperSport).... like, for example, "Denmark will qualify for the World Cup if they defeat Albania AND Hungary lose to Portugal AND Sweden do not defeat Malta."



Simple, really.

Block

I love today's Non Sequitur. It reminds me of this old Calvin & Hobbes classic, which I think every writer has saved somewhere on their computer (if not pasted up on their fridge)...

Battle

Time magazine have a photo gallery up of pictures from the recent fighting in Afghanistan's Kunar Province (hidden away in the gloomy parts of the Hindu Kush). The photos are high-contrast black and white, which makes them look like they fell out of a Sin City comic book.



Or from the pages of Battle Action Force.

Malign

And now this one.

(By the way, the heading on the previous post is a pun on "Anything said in Latin sounds profound".)

(Har Har.)

Squidsquid Latine Dictum Sit Altum Videtur

It's been a terrible week at work, and I was looking through my files (yes, I have files) for an old Non Sequitur comic strip to help sum it up.

I found this.

And I laughed at work for the first time this week.

Hold

While other scientists waste their time searching for stupid stuff like... y'know... a cure of cancer, others are spending their time and research grants more wisely. Like the eggheads at the Israel Institute of Technology who've conducted research into what it's like being put on hold when you're on the telephone.

Turns out women like alt.rock, men like classical music, and nobody likes that annoying chick from Telkom to come on the line and say: "Your call is important to us. You are number" ... "Twenty-nine" ... "in line".

And they needed researchers to figure that out?

Beslan

It's been five years now since the horrific Beslan school massacre. I was working in online news when it happened, and I remember sub-editing the Reuters news reports at the time, thinking: "This can't be happening."

The best account I've ever read on the events at Beslan is the feature published in Esquire magazine. Esquire rate it as one of their seven best stories ever, and it's hard to disagree. It's long (6 000 words, if I remember correctly) and it's harrowing. But it's some of the best writing, and best journalism, I've ever read.

Take a deep breath and go check it out.

New Moon

The Big Picture has an amazing gallery up of photographs of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It's well worth a gander... if only to see a peaceful side of the Islamic world that Western news reporters often don't bother showing.

President

I'm blowing the dust off a Cracked classic: The 5 Most Bad-Ass (American) Presidents of All Time. It's one of those stories where you kind of understand what Dan Carlin meant when he said, "History has ruined fiction for me."

Try this quote, from the entry on Andrew Jackson:

"The bullet, by the by, remained in Jackson's body for 19 years because, we assume, Jackson knew that time spent removing the bullets would just fall under the general category of "time not dueling," Jackson's least favorite category."

The rest of the revelations are no less insane: John Quincy Adams kept a pet alligator in the White House. And (again, to quote) checking Teddy Roosevelt's resumé is like reading a How-To guide on ass-kicking manliness.

Legends

There's a fun feature up at Smithsonian.com, where they debunk a whole list of spooky legends about the creepy Smithsonian Castle. The big old Gothic/Romanesque red sandstone building certainly looks scary... and the legends are pretty cool.

Sample: The Smithsonian tried to find Noah’s Ark at Mount Ararat.
Another sample: There's a secret underground archive under the National Mall.
My favourite sample: The Smithsonian discovered Egyptian ruins in the Grand Canyon.

Sadly, none of the legends are true. And the whole point of the story is to prove that.

Psht.

Whatever happened to no letting the facts get in the way of a good story?

Atlas Shrugged

Maybe, in my quest to shed some kilos, I should sign up for the old Charles Atlas deal. Smithsonian magazine had a brilliant feature on Charles Atlas last month. Here's a man who started out as a skinny, picked-on bully magnet, and ended up tearing telephone books in half.

Kind of like Spider-Man, just without the webs.

Ungraceful

I was thinking about getting a scooter. Not any more.

Mountain

"Fifteen minutes. I'll give you 15 minutes. And then you must go." While that's not the ideal start to an interview (although, come to think of it, it's about standard issue for South Africa's hapless sports journalists), in the case of Brad Wetzler's superb profile of Reinhold Messner for Outside magazine (published way back in 2002, but still there in the archives), it's the start of something great.

Messner is a grumpy, cantankerous old mountain goat, but you end up loving him despite all that. The feature is well worth the read (even if you don't care about mountain climbing), and the photos by Anton Corbijn are... Well, they're the reason I started reading the story in the first place.

20kg

A week or two ago the medical aiders from Discovery Health came to our offices to offer voluntary health assessments. I'm happy to reveal that my cholesterol and blood glucose levels are both perfect, as is my eyesight. I'm not quite as happy to reveal that Discovery recommended I lose 20kg.

I weigh a round (OK, not that round: I like to think that my body is more a broad V than an O) 100kg, which means Discovery want my to drop 20% of my body weight. I've since signed up for the Men's Health New Man Challenge.

Let's hope it works.

Minus

After about two seasons, I kinda felt like Dawson's Creek would've been better without Dawson in it. Dan Walsh felt the same way about Garfield – so he started a comic strip called Garfield Minus Garfield.

He does it using the same technology that helped Hitler get rid of Goebbels, helped Mussolini get rid of his horse-handler, and helped Microsoft get rid of a black dude.



And the results are no less bizarre.

Beans

That's it. I'm officially sick and tired of this stupid economy.