Amsterdam

In Amsterdam for a week. Wondering round I am coming to the view that Amsterdam is in fact a massive trick played on the stoners, tokers and nere-do-wells by the strict and Presbyterian Dutch - who do not partake, but do take the rent, and the taxes. The smokers and hookers and visitors are all non-Dutch, while the Dutch seem to exist in a parallel world of books and high design.

Sadly, I am now old and reactionary enough to side with the Dutch. I find myself wandering past yet another "coffee" bar and thinking "don't you have anything better to do?" Suddenly Bohemanian just seems to mean not working hard enough. What a difference 20 years makes - not in the city but in me.

LFC again

I’ve just been reading Michael Lewis’s Moneyball. Tom Hicks and John W Henry both crop up in it as baseball club owners, which is relevant to their battle for LFC. Moneyball is about the way the Oakland A’s baseball club overachieved for their budget, because their General Manager worked out ways to value players in a different way to other clubs. Hicks appears a couple of times in a generally negative light as someone who overpaid for underperforming players. Henry appears as a club owner open to new ideas, and willing to learn and change to become more successful. If those are accurate representations, it would be a good sign for LFC.

Make or break

I was a supporter of Roy Hodgson becoming manager at LFC. Now I think he is at make or break point. A defeat to Everton in the derby game and I think his position will be unsustainable. LFC in the relegation zone until November would be unacceptable to the supporters and club. Personally I hope he makes it.