34: The New 33.

I woke up with the taste of beer in my mouth. The text I'd just got was a reminder of my own birthday (an overlooked drawback of hand-me-down phones). There were car horns blaring on the street outside and sunlight streaming in through the window - which was a big improvement on last year at least.

It was already half past ten and there was no hot water in the shower, so I shelved my plans to go for a run. "Happy birthday," I thought as I went back to sleep.

Saving the Planet

I read James Lovelock saying "I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," and I think of dopes sending so much 4 global warming texts to Five Live each and every time it snows in winter (wait until July, people, and let's see who's laughing then).

And George Carlin.



"The planet is fine. The people are fucked."

Newcastle - Forest: TwitReport

I haven't tried this since Portsmouth at home at the end of last season, but then, as entertaining as this season has been, with no derbies to play (the only thing Middlesbrough have is annoying fans - all 16,000 of them) we've rarely had so much at stake as we do tonight. Win and the right combination of results at the weekend could see us promoted. Lose, and we're looking over our shoulders.

The game in tweets:

Wonder if my Ukrainian neighbours can make out the words to 'We hate Nottingham Forest'? Probably not.

Either this feed's got a bit of a time delay or I've lost seven minutes of my life.

Match tipple number one: Tuborg Green. Only available in Denmark, eastern Europe and the 1980s. First gulp. I can almost see why.

What a chance! Shame Carroll wasn't so reticent about striking when he had Stephen Taylor to aim at.

Carroll and Lovenkrands looking lively for #nufc. Can't see this staying goalless, which means that's exactly how it will end.

The only attack Forest have had in 10 minutes and the picture suddenly freezes...when it comes back a black-and-white shirt is advancing over the halfway line. Phew.

Beer number two: Chernihivske wheat beer. In a one-litre plastic bottle. Classy bloke, me.

"Absolute mayhem" in the penalty area. On my screen too, unfortunately.

As Betfair's gone a bit funny, I'm now listening to an over-exciteable Norwegian describing Andy Carroll's ankle knock.

And there's the Norse for "How the fuck did he miss that?"

#Ameobi started the season like a house on fire. He's ending it like Shola Ameobi.

If we score here, it's coming from Routledge and Lovenkrands.

"It's gone in off the post." I thought Forest had scored until I heard the words 'Shola Ameobi'. The bloke's a genius. I've always said so.

Forest respond by bringing on The Mekon.

"We're Newcastle and we're gonna win the league." Indeed.

Not that I'm tempting fate or anything...

Geeeeeeeeet iiiiiiiiiiin!!!

Game over. Good showing from Forest but we deserved that.

I'll miss the Championship, I really will. But they'll miss us too.

Fixing Football

Transfer windows to help supporter buyouts, forcing clubs to hand over a 25% stake to fans and far tougher scrutiny of would-be owners. It's easy to be cynical about a policy idea floated six weeks before an election, but Gordon Brown is a genuine socialist football fan, having been involved in the fan-led campaign to save Raith Rovers. Credit where credit's due: were Labour this radical about the things that really matter, they might even be worth voting for again.

Return of the Poison Pen

Whatever did or didn't happen on the training ground last Sunday - Secret texts and money taunts? What else did footballers ever find to talk about? - you can be sure Louise Taylor had a lot of fun writing this.

But not half as much as I had reading it:

Newcastle's manager won a UN commendation for anti-apartheid campaigning but as Carroll waved insouciantly to fans at Doncaster it seemed Hughton had suddenly lost sight of the bigger picture.

Yes, Louise, that's exactly what did it.

UPDATE: Spot the subtle reference in her match report too. A lovely bit of shoehorning.

The People You Meet In Bars

"Sorry, where are you come from?" asked the man in the Lacoste cap, suddenly materialising at the bar. "My English not good," he apologised as the only pair of single girls in the whole place scraped back their stools and got ready to leave. "You live here? But this is not possible. Odessa is a Russian city, nobody speaks English." I zoned in and out, made the occasional comment, but left most of the talking to my friend. "London is smog?" "Not really, not anymore." "What is your money from job?" "Erm..." "Secret?" "Yes, secret."

He stuck around for five minutes, then left to join his friends. "Could have been worse," my mate summed up. "I thought it was going to be another one of those TEFL conversations."

What is History?

"Crimea," said Potemkin, "is the wart on Russia's nose". It wasn't always. For five hundred years it was ruled by Muslims, descendants of the Mongol horde, but most of them left in the three-quarters of a century between Catherine the Great's destructive policy of Russification and the end of the Crimean War. Stalin saw to the rest, deporting the Tatar population en masse on the trumped-up charge of collaboration with the Nazis. They weren't allowed back until 1989 and now make up just 12% of the near two million inhabitants.

To the majority Russian population Crimea has always been theirs. Or at least it was never Ukraine's. When Krushchev transferred the peninsula from Russia to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 most of his countrymen thought he must have been drunk. In 1991 88% of Crimeans voted against the dissolution of the Soviet Union, two-thirds of the population speak Russian as their first language, and Russia's Black Sea Fleet still has its base in the city of Sevastopol.

None of which is likely to change anytime soon.

Among the Sex-Pats

"Saw a doco on Odessa last night," went the email from my friend in Brisbane. "It was about the raging sex industry there. Said it was the Bangkok of Europe. Now I know why u went there ;)". Thai comparisons are still a bit of a stretch, but the Irish bar on the main drag is often full of seedy, older, German and English-speaking men and I've already met too many foreigners here who live off undefined "internet work" (online marriage agencies for the most part).

One of them - a fast-balding, thirtysomething American with manboobs and a jagged scar on his forehead - used to live in my flat, which seems to be enough of a link to merit conversation. "Is the bed still propped up on metal? Yeah? Sorry, I broke that," he leered by way of introduction, extending a sweaty hand. "This hot chick totally checked me out when I was walking past the pizza place. I would've gone in and spoilt her boyfriend's night but I'm already fully booked. Got a date tomorrow and a choice of two for the night after that. They're both smokin' hot." I must've looked dubious for a second, because he finally paused for breath. "And I've got the photos to prove it." And the receipts too, I thought sardonically. "Man, what is it with this place? There is nothing on this menu worth drinking. Give me your number and we'll go out sometime. I'll have to hook you up."

In the News

'Construction of airport Boryspil terminal D 3 months behind schedule' was the headline of the main story in this week's Kyiv Post. 'Depressing outlook as Euro 2012 stadium work falls five months behind' began the introduction to the next story down, as the government held crisis talks about the state of the capital's Olympic Stadium and UEFA threatened to strike Lvov off the list of host cities altogether. 'Kyiv's authorities have three months to solve urgent problems' said the one below that.

They should probably get in touch with Multiplex.

Conspiracies

Just as in Riga, my adult classses are a never-ending source of cynicism and conspiracies: the Marks and Spencer's on the edge of town is more expensive than in Britain but "the clothes are not the same quality like in London. They send us only the bad things." The market by the train station is cheaper than the one nearer my house, though "they cheat you more with the scales." Lipton Tea is "shit, but only in Ukraine." Moldovan fruit is dangerous. Yulia Tymoshenko, the still glamorous 49-year-old ex-prime minister, "only looks young because she takes lots of drugs."

"Have you heard what Azarov said about women?" I asked in class today. "It was even in the British papers. And Yanukovych told Tymoshenko to stay in the kitchen".

"I hope not," smiled one of the students. "She'd confuse the flour for cocaine".