Driving and writing

This weekend was to be when I would book driving lessons and do some writing. I have not booked driving lessons and done very little writing. But there's a few hours left.

Having just turned 26 it's fairly embarassing not to have a driving license, but I've been able to get by fairly well without one so far. Still, I don't want to get to the point where I really need to be able to drive and don't have a license, hence the strategy of getting it now.

Watched Match of the Day for the first time in ages last night. Spurs really should have scored 4 in the first half against Sunderland, but ultimately were lucky to get the win as Sunderland could easily have scored one or two in the second half. Still, the club has its mind on the knockout competitions for the next week.

Wish I had the time for this kind of thing. Or perhaps just the imagination

Carling Cup

The usual stuff is being trotted out by commentators and fans ahead of tonight's semi-final against Arsenal. It's a sad fact that to be a Spurs fan is to be obsessed by Arsenal, while Arsenal fans can focus smugly on such trivialities as title run-ins and Champions League knock-out matches, only pausing to turn a disdainful gaze on their local rivals when these occasional derbies crop up. Then it's all "Spurs are poorly run... fans have unrealistic expectations... litany of failure..." The patronising ones are the worst.

Arsenal made an inspired appointment when they got Wenger. I'm sure they've made other good choices as well, but he changed the culture of the club to the extent that they are now a byword for beautiful football. The frustrating this is that he's just the sort of person I should and would admire, but for the fact that he manages Arsenal: one of the reasons why football fandom is fundamentally stupid.

Anyway, the match before Christmas was entertaining and it would have been entirely justified if Spurs had won it. We take heart from that. In other news, Hillary Clinton has made a spectacular comeback - turning around the poll results from only 24 hours ago. Seems to have been driven by high female turnout and low youth turnout. Nationally it will be a tougher job for Barack to reverse this phenomenon than for Hillary to exploit it, but the whole thing is incredibly difficult to call. If I were American, right now I genuinely wouldn't know who to vote for. But I'd lean toward Barack.

Kenya

I was there for six months in 2001. At that time, Daniel arap Moi was still president - and had been since 1978 or so. People couldn't wait to get rid of him. He stood down in 2002 and Mwai Kibaki, at the head of an opposition coalition, defeated his nominated successor Uhuru Kenyatta. The progress under Kibaki was fantastic and when I visited Kenya again last October the positive changes were obvious. People seemed happy with Kibaki in Gilgil, which is the town where I stayed back in 2001. It's a predominantly Kikuyu area though, and down on the coast people were expressing support for the opposition candidate Raila Odinga.

Kenyan politics has long been troubled by ethnic divisions; it was known that Kalenjins (a very small tribe, relatively) prospered disproportionately under Moi. But the scale of violence following the disputed election was a huge shock to me: I just didn't think that the ethnic divisions could result in such intensity of conflict so quickly. However it was totally wrong (but typically sensasionalist) of the Western media to start making comparisons with Rwanda so quickly. This article is an excellent insight into the situation and ends with a very moving message of hope. Having looked at electoral systems as a tool for managing ethnic conflicts at university I got quite excited by the prospect of forging a new constitution for Kenya. Hope it happens.

In the meantime, Reading this afternoon should be a good, open game and a win. Lawrenson's prediction of 3-1 sounds right.

Berbatov 30 million plus; Obama wins Iowa

I think Ramos' announcement that Spurs won't sell Berbatov for less than 30 million quid probably means he won't go this month, but they might get that sort of money from Man Utd or Chelsea in the summer. This is good, as it gives us a chance to win something, making it more likely he'll stay. It would be disastrous for the campaign if he went now - almost impossible to get a decent replacement in this transfer window.

Other news: Barack Obama won the Democratic caucus in Iowa. Good: I'm supporting him on principle. The free world could do with someone a bit different leading it - Hillary strikes me as boring and conservative.

Revival

Or resurrection. I'm going to restart this blog, as one of my New Year's resolutions. That's a lot of "re"'s - although what the function of "re" in "resolution" is, I'm not sure. A re-solution? Does that make sense? Possibly.

Anyway: there have been such drastic changes at Spurs since I last posted that it would be impractical to summarise all my feelings about them in a single post right now. Main impressions from the past six months:

Outrage at the treatment of Martin Jol, followed by grudging acceptance that, while the means was ugly, the end was correct. Ramos is a better manager, although he still has a lot of work to do. If we'd beaten Arsenal they could have had few complaints: that's motion in the right direction. I thought results like the 6-4 against Reading were a thing of the past, but the culture clearly runs deep. Ledley coming back will be big.

Robbie Keane is an extremely important player. Great goalscorer, creative, committed and clear-headed (tragic misses against Arsenal on his comeback notwithstanding).

We have to try to keep Berbatov, but chances of him staying beyond the end of the season seem minimal. I can't quite see how he would fit in at Man Utd - they have so many attackers - but someone of his ability should see that as a challenge rather than a problem. For them he would be like a younger Teddy Sheringham. A bit like he is for Spurs. Perhaps the only way we can keep him is to win the Uefa or FA Cup, alongside a convincing finish in the league.

I'm not convinced by Damien Comolli. In large part it was his (and Levy's) player recruitment policy that got Jol into such trouble. Hope he backs the new manager.

Next game is against Chelsea. Actually looking forward to it.

International

Good to see Ledley King and Paul Robinson distinguishing themselves for England. It was a pretty comfortable match overall, but I think each of them made positive contributions - especially Robinson coming out quickly to close down one of Estonia's chances.

In the meantime, 4 straight days on my own at the office has led to an odd relationship with work. It is the story of my whole time working for this company: I'd have thought that I've been working alone for at least half of the days I've been there, which covers about 20 months. I'd quite like to know what it's like to have lots of colleagues.