What a kerfuffle..

The story so far:
So, on the 21st of June I sold my beloved iPhone 3GS, in order to make way for the new iPhone 4 3days later.
On the 24th of June I turn up at the 02 store at 8am to find queues of over 200 people, now I already know there is limited stock, so with a 'Sheesh' I returned home empty handed.
On arrival home I realised my best option was to order off the Apple store and endure an excruciating 3 week wait, while having to put up with an awful (pink) Samsung Tocco, it really is the worst phone known to man (apart from the video calling).

Two and a half weeks pass and I receive an E-mail stating due to low stock my iPhone 4 had been delayed a further 2 days. Right, no problem at all. So there I am sat at my computer refreshing TNT's order status page for the next 2 days. The phone makes its journey from Shenzhen in CHINA, to Hong Kong, and then seemingly on to a plane towards Arnhem in the Netherlands. I wake up the next morning to find this status

DELAY DUE TO BAD WEATHER. RECOVERY ACTION UNDERWAY

Now what could this mean. Has it fallen out of the plane, and now a team of deep sea divers are going into the depths to retrieve it..? I ring TNT and they say the plane got diverted because of bad weather, and my iPhone should still be on for its July 19th delivery date (although the original dtae was the 15th).

Right, so now you are up-to-date. I now have no idea where my iPhone is on the planet, let's just hope there's no more bad weather!

Then someone suggested, maybe Apple have delayed the shipment over the issues with the iPhone 4's antenna issues, ahead of their 6PM Press Conference tomorrow (16th). Conspiracy theories? And is it a coincidence that the Lorry logo on the map of where my phone is (which isn't meant to be accurate) is currently over the heart of Iran? Maybe Ahmadinejad is an Apple sympathiser..?

Who knows, all will be revealed with time. Check back early next week for a full review of the iPhone 4.

Adam

England: World Cup 2010, Just What Went Wrong

Hello avid fans, my first substantial post is an article written for a college project, looking at Englands world cup bid and just what went wrong.

Enjoy...

Another world cup, another rollercoaster ride courtesy of Fabio Capello, and 23 Englishmen. Some blame our inability to progress further then the last 16 on bad squad selections, some blame it on how Capello runs his ship, here’s what I think...

Fabio Capello (unlike Sven) didn’t really make any shock selections when it came down to his world cup squad. The only surprise was his exclusion of Arsenal forward, Theo Walcott. Although Walcott is a nippy player, the majority didn’t feel his exclusion would be detrimental to England's world Cup chances, as the squad had strength and breadth. So if Capello had the players, then what went wrong...

Capello had a star-studded squad, with players such as Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard, but a squad maybe not as strong as England’s previous World Cup squads. We thought maybe the lack of international-quality players would be made up for with Capello’s supreme tactical awareness, this sadly didn’t come to fruition. To be honest, I think the squad he picked and indeed the teams he picked (Apart from Heskey, I’ll get to him in a minute) where the right ones in most peoples minds, the squad sort of picks itself.

Long has there been a debate about whether Lampard and Gerrard are able to play together, as both try and dominate the midfield. Capello tried to combat this by playing Gerrard on the left (even though he is right-footed) and Gareth Barry in the centre alongside Lampard. This begs the question, why did Capello go into a World Cup Finals without a left-footed winger? This left Gerrard creeping into the middle and so the team lacked width. A lot of people where then crying out for Joe Cole to play on the left. Cole had not been back from injury long, maybe this is why Capello didn’t chose to play him much. In my opinion I don’t think Cole would have made that much difference...

Capello has stuck by a policy since he became England manager – He only picks people who have been playing for their clubs, and aren’t an injury risk. So why did he pick Gareth Barry then? Who got injured just before the World Cup and was a serious doubt, I didn’t realise you could make exceptions (for distinctly average players) Mr Capello... So Barry eventually recovered to play a major (but ineffective) role in England’s World Cup bid. Another player that played a big part was Emile Heskey, a player that scored just 3 goals in the whole season for his club side. Meanwhile Peter Crouch was sat on the bench, holder of England's best goal-scoring record in the qualifiers. Heskey, in the past, has played a valuable role for England, being a target man and feeding his strike partner. This did not work from the first game, yet Capello tried to persevere until he decided to start Defoe instead. Another pivotal decision where Capello got it wrong was when England were 3-1 down against Germany, Capello was in desperate need for goals, and then he brought Jermaine Defoe off who was looking to be one of England's best players, and brought on Emile Heskey. Firstly I feel Capello bottled it on this decision, he was too scared what people (/the media) might say if he where to bring Rooney off (who couln’t hit a barn door in the competition) and England were to lose. Secondly, bringing Heskey on when we are in need of a goal, it’s almost an oxymoron. Meanwhile Crouch isn’t used at all during any of the competition.

Sven Goran Ericsson was notoriously slack on his England players, with the media going into a frenzy about the WAGs practically staying with the players at the 2006 World Cup. Capello on the other hand runs a hard bargain, there’s distance between the managerial staff and the players, authority. Before the World Cup, this was seen as a good thing, bringing the players back down to earth, but post-World Cup people are now saying that the players had no input to the team and that Capello was unapproachable. It does not help when the man leading you can hardly string two words together in English. Watching the post-match interviews being interpreted by a translator was absolutely farcical, they say football is a universal language, but being on the same page helps for starters...

The disallowed goal... Yes Lampard’s goal should have been given, but to be honest, we shouldn’t have even been playing Germany. When the World Cup groups were announced, we were over the moon. We had the beating of every team in our group, yet we still drew with the USA and Algeria. This was not good enough. Winning the group would mean we went on to play Ghana, which would be a very winnable game (although not for this squad?) and then Uruguay in the quarters, which again would be winnable. So just by winning the easy games, we would’ve provided ourselves an easier route to the final... hypothetically.

This World Cup was no exception when it came to media frenzies. They dubbed it our ‘Best chance since Italia 90’, but don’t we say that every year? Various songs were released for England's World Cup bid- James Corden and Dizzee Rascal, and Terry Venables- with my personal lowlight being the remake of Baddiel and Skinner’s – Football’s Coming Home. The song was absolutely murdered, along with an operatic interpretation towards the end. Maybe the England boys heard this and thought, let’s just give up now..?

Is it sheer coincidence that 4 of the Premierships biggest stars failed to perform on the world stage – Rooney, Torres, Gerrard and Lampard. Maybe this has something to do with the fact our season runs closer to the world Cup then any other league. It would make sense, as all our players looked fatigues and out of touch. Capello has again urged The Premier league to look at a break before world cups, not going to happen! Maybe the Germans beat us because they have been using the ball longer then us (a full season), wait, what have we been using this season.. oh yeah, a FOOTBALL just like them... it’s not like ours was triangular or anything!

After the England team returned home, rumours spread on the internet that there had been a split camp at England's base. This apparently was because Steven Gerrard had gotten his wife’s (Alex Corren) 16-year-old sister pregnant. This had surfaced within the squad, with John Terry calling for Gerrard to lose the captaincy, just like he had. The camp was then split between Gerrard and Terry. It turns out Gerrard’s wife doesn’t even have a sister, and that it’s all made up by someone (probably a bitter Rafael Benitez!).

In my opinion, this has been our worst world cup bid I have seen. Down to the factors highlighted above. So how do we go forward? We need an English manager, someone with guts. The FA should then stop paying players to play for their country, it should be a privilege. The manager needs an overhaul of all the big players – Gerrard, Rooney, Terry, Lampard etc. – and encourage other English players through who are willing to work hard (Jagielka or Kevin Davis types) and are proud to be wearing the Three Lions. I feel a squad like that would have got as far as we got this time round, if not further. And we wouldn’t have gone out like a flailing Rob Green, we would have gone out with a fight, and passion.. for England.. for Sir Bobby.

Hello I'm Adam, you may me remember me from such shows as...

Dear Readers, if you're reading this, this means you have been drawn in by my clever marketing ploys via Twitter and/or Facebook. Or maybe you were Googling Harry Potter (The blog that lived) and just stumbled across this... either way, let this be the start of something beautiful, something... real (if you don't know me, then you probably don't realise I cannot stand sentimentality, and that the last part was just ironic)

Enjoy!

AB