FC Barcelona - or why the British tabloid press cannot be trusted

Yesterday for the second time in three years, FC Barcelona played Manchester United in the final of the European Champions League football ("soccer" for North American readers) tournament.

In 2009, United still had Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the world's great players, as a member of their team. For all that Barcelona played them off the park and won convincingly. Their magic triangle (Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Messi) all showed their amazing talent, the rest of the team contributed splendidly, and the result was never in doubt.

So we came to the 2011 final.

Barcelona have since acquired the services of maybe the best Spanish striker of his day in David Villa, the magic triangle is still operating, and they are overall an even more impressive team than in 2009. United have not seriously replaced Cristiano Ronaldo, are still the best team in England, but look like they get there mainly by hard work more than anything else. Inspiration is not their strong suit, and the team is probably not as good as it was in 2009.

If Barca were that much better in 2009, and United have gone backwards somewhat, you would logically believe that Barca would be the clear winners in anyone's book, even if the game were being played in England.

Well, not if you read the British tabloid press. During the course of the last week, there were times tht you would imagine that United were at least on a par with Barca, and revenge for 2009 was almost a foregone conclusion. Ryan Giggs, still a useful player but 35-years-old, was being put on a par with Xavi (who has won everything there is to win in the last four years) for example.

I suppose that it builds up enthusiasm for the event, but as with so much nonsense that appears in the oversimplified columns of the British tabloid press, it had nothing to do with reality.

Sure enough, come the game, Barca, playing away from home basically, took the game by the scruff of the neck, and apart from the moment before half time when United surprisingly equalised, controlled proceedings and won clearly by a margin of 3-1.

So today come out all the tabloid headlines with puns on the name "Messi" (Messiah, stuff like that). I suppose puns on Xavi might have been a bit more difficult to find, but anyway ....

This world remains an incredibly complex place. For most of us anyway. Not if you are a writer for a tabloid newspaper in the UK, though. Everything for them is about as simple and as uncomplicated as the next headline, and the issues behind things can be disposed of as quickly ....

Recruitment Advertising Agencies and other jokes

I went on the Web this morning looking for translation jobs.

I ran into an ad from a company claiming (in English) that they had 200,000 jobs in Germany! I personally doubt whether the government Employment Offices across the country have that many vacancies at the moment, but it was worth investigating.

Checked the first page - sales this, sales that, sales the other! If you do not like selling, if you actually loathe the very thought of being obliged to sell something? Forget it? Join the long-term unemployed? Give up looking?

IT positions, translation work, things that I could do? No sign of anything - needless to say!

Why they did not advertise themselves as having "200,000 SALES jobs in Germany"? Maybe they would realise that many people would not even look at what they had to offer.

But in a world where the choice increasingly seems to be selling or flipping burgers, what else might you expect?

I have a week - and then I am forced back on to Hartz IV, like it or not (and I don't!). I also this week have a discussion with the tax authorities on how the company that I was working for produced some phoney figures for my income between 2004 and 2008, and I am somehow responsible for that - either way it looks like they will want some money back from me (some hope! They might as well lock me up in jail and throw away the key, even if I think that I personally have done nothing wrong).

If I get through the next week intact, I will survive anything. "Bleak" understates it.

So when do the people you know or knew really die?

I was scouting the Web yesterday for details on two former university friends with whom I kept in touch for years.

In the first instance, approximately three years ago, the Christmas card that I sent him and his family came back with "no longer at this address" written on it. He was never known to just disappear, he always left forwarding addresses, always let you know when he changed his 'phone number or email address (both those did not work either).

While his wife was a strange person in some respects (the ansaphone was always left on - so you could not contact them directly), this simply disappearing without trace was so untypical ....

Eventually I concluded that he must have died. So yesterday I checked all the obituaries that I could find in the relevant areas. Nothing. The last Internet reference for anything concerning him was in 2005. He was such a good friend for years, it is difficult to know what might have happened.

In the second instance, I am certain that the guy in question died, simply as he had been a victim of liver cancer, which they once cured only for it to return. For a non-smoker and non-drinker to catch this is all the weirder, and as a wonderful husband, father and grandfather all the more tragic.

For all that I can find no references to his death anywhere either. I am totally baffled - and saddened.

A couple of bits of wisdom

The first from an unusual source - a Republican who actually realises that there are economic issues that are important:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/16/frum.huckabee.gop/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Secondly from Stephen Hawking:

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark".

In 2010, Hawking told US TV anchor Diane Sawyer that "science will win" in a battle with religion "because it works."

"What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible".

I do not always agree with Stephen Hawking (though who am I to compare myself with a scientist of his enormous calibre?) - though all the above sounds sensible to me personally. Where I differ is that I believe the universe to be infinite - even void exists - so there is essentially no beginning or end. Nor are these two concepts necessary, nor do we need a "big bang" - you merely accept the continuum.