It weights over 400 tons fully loaded, carries 415 people 7,000 miles around the world and all this is done 6 miles up in the air at 615 miles an hour.

I get the physics of how it flies and I used to work on the 747 prgram, but it still amazes me what this incredible machine does. And it’s been flying in various versions since 1969. Don’t let anyone tell you machines don’t have souls.

I’ve been thinking about this whole single threaded roots thing. I recently used the example of music. In ‘83 my mate Angus lent me a cassette of Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast Album. I listened to it, said “that’s f#$^& awesome” and have never looked back. There are a number of other placed where one person had a huge influence on me. Swearing is another one.

I’d been to football grounds and thought I knew about swearing. I though I’d heard everything, mostly prefaced with “The referee is…”, but occasionally used as a question “Are you #$&* joking!” and one or twice as a gentle suggestion (“$@#*# Get up you useless $&*#”). By this time I’d been taught there was language that was acceptable on the terrace at Aldershot that was clearly not permissible at home (and lets not tell your mum about this).

First time I heard dad swear was on the terrace. It’s one of those rites if passage, abet a minor one, but a rite of passage none the less. The game was between Woking and Dagenham, being played at Kingfield for a place in the 1980 FA trophy final. This is the biggest non-league trophy and means a huge day out at Wembley for the finalists.

I remember dad swore, very loudly and very clearly and I believe I stood there looking at him trying to process what I’d just heard. He just carried on as if nothing had happened.

I guess if this were a really ironic story (actually my new definition of irony is “Sweet home Alabama” played in a bar in Castro Valley, talk about playing to an audience of one…) I’d share about how I went home and repeated what I’d heard to mum. Dad would get into trouble for using such words in front of me and we’d all laugh about it years later. However that did not happen. While clearly my survival instincts are not the best, but even I got that repeating what I’d heard on the terrace in the house was a really, really bad idea.

A couple of years later the whole swearing thing moved up a notch thanks to my oldest friend Rob. We go back almost 30 years and he was the first of my close friends who had the right mix of foresight and vision to start playing with swear words.

Rob and I on the train heading into London to a computer show at Earls Court (this was maybe 1982, my inner geekdom has deep roots) and Rob threw out some creative swearing, he used two words that in my experience had not been put together before. As teenagers do, we were calling each other names I got hit with a “piss on you asshole” and went whoa I had never heard that combination of words. While yeah I’d heard them individually, but this was different.

I had nothing to return over the net, game to Rob and a whole new world was born. I like to think I’ve made up for lost time, and I’ve been told by multiple people that being English helps when it comes to sounding authoritative with a potty mouth, but I like to think that today my bad language can stand on it’s own two feet.

As I’ve said before, It’s quite a moment when someone knows you well enough to sit you down, say “you are going to like this” and not only be right, but be an influence for decades to come.

I love Italy; I once worked for an Italian company and spent a lot of time in the country. This week I have the chance to spend a couple of days in Rome. As will all good trips I got a little time to play tourist. This is a city I’ll never grow tired of. But I found enough time to walk around, see a couple of old favourites and one new one I really wanted to visit.

Even just wandering along the road from the hotel to the subway is wonderful, there right in front of me is the Coliseum, but that’s not today’s destination. The Rome subway is not terribly convenient for most places, but it does run close to the hotel. It’s a little old, rather scruffy and only has two lines, but it does what I need today.

I get off at the Spanish steps, from there I a wander to the Trevi fountain and then onto the Parthenon. A just stunning building, it’s a few years since I’ve been there and the initial awe of walking through the three imposing rows of columns into the rotunda is still there.

It’s as inspiring as ever, not just the age, but the effort and labour that went into it. Looking up through the oculus in the centre to the blue sky knowing that people have been looking at exactly the same view for almost 1900 years is rather humbling.

I don’t mean to sound like a gushing sycophant (but I am), but this is an amazing city full of wonderful buildings, stories, food, wine and people. I quickly run out of superlatives.

Michelangelo felt the Parthenon was the work of angels, not men. According to Roman legend, it is the location is where Romulus, the founder of Rome, died and was carried off to the heavens by an eagle to be with the gods.

The city has enough legends, stories and history to keep people busy for a lifetime.

My father visited it in 1952 as an 18 year old leaving Greenock, unfortunately he was not up to visiting this time. When I was in England last spring we talked about how it was when he visited. It was only 7 years after the end of the war and while Rome itself was not the scene of fighting, you did not have to go far. It would have been fun to share a visit with dad, but it’s just not going to happen this time, maybe in the spring.

Next stop was a new sight for me, the Museo dell’ Ara Pacis. The building was opened in 2006 and was the first building constructed in the old city in almost 70 years. It’s design is modernist, controversial and the contains the Ara Pacis Augustae. This was the Emperor Augustus great monument to the (relative) peace Rome had brought to its empire. It’s a stunning marble altar with massive marble frescoes and is quite something to see close up. It’s a little out the way, but so worth the effort.

The altar is mostly complete, unfortunately about half the frescoes are scattered all over the world, and parts are in London, Washington and Paris. Sitting here I see the other side of the Elgin Marbles argument. A section of the frescoes are in the British Museum in London. The “Elgin Marbles” question is are they better off in the big museums of the world, or here as part of the original piece of work?

It’s a tough argument and I’ve mostly sided with the British Museum/Louvre up to now. They claim that important works should be shared with as many people as possible in a way that best preserves them. Perhaps it’s time to rethink that argument, or at least look at the other side.

For a long time it was about preservation, the Elgin Marbles is probably the most controversial of the items pilfered by the British Empire. For a long time the argument for them staying in England was that the Greeks had nowhere to put them and they would deteriorate in the pollution of Athens. Then the Greeks built the Acropolis Museum, and the argument changed to more people would see them in London that Greece. Reality is possession is 9/10 of the law with most of these things, so they stay in London.

The Museo dell’ Ara Pacis is not that big and is very focused on the one item. It presents the history, the discovery, restoration and most importantly the meaning to Rome and Augustus in some depth. It gives it more meaning that just another fresco in the British Museum and perhaps should be reunited in a place like this that can do it justice. It’s an interesting argument.

Of course, I could not miss at least a wander across to St Peters Square. I did not have time to visit either St Peters Basilica of the Vatican museums; I’ll find time when I’m back in the spring.

For dinner a couple of options were put forward, Hard Rock Café (for the picky eaters) or head out a find a place. No choice, as nice as I’m sure the HRC is, it’s not exactly Roman. We ended up in a little place off the Piazza Campo di Fiori. The food was exceptional, the wine wonderful and free flowing. I get it’s a stereotype, but the piazza really was full of Vespers buzzing around despite the cool weather.

Rome is a city best appreciated on foot, it’s not too big. I was lucky and got to wander for a few hours, while the big sights are great, it’s the details and little things that give a city character. It could be the graffiti on the South Bank in London, random patches of green in New York or another piece of the Roman Empire standing by the side of the road. Each place has a character that makes finding time to play tourist so much fun.

In the last few weeks there has been a number of dramatic footage of Mount Merapi on Java erupting. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated and st last count a couple of hundred killed.

I was going through some stuff a couple of nights ago, looking for a text book and came across a diary I kept in the early 90’s while I was away travelling for a few months. I was travelling through South East Asia with a Swiss girl, Lili. This was a truly great time with many, many highlights and just the sort of thing people in their 20’s should be doing.

I’ve kept a diary on and off for decades, it’s moments like this the reason why is driven home and the English teacher that first started me doing this will always have my gratitude.

Indonesia is a wonderful place with lots to see, wonderful people and in the early 90’s rather cheap. This particular time we were traveling together from Yogyakarta on Java, to Kuta Beach on Bali. We broke this particular trip up with a stop in Tumpang high up in the mountains of Eastern Java. The reason to stop at a little guest house in a little town was to see the sun rise over an active volcano, this one was Mount Bromo.

Bromo is about 250KM east of the current eruption on Merapi, but Yogyakarta is affected by the eruption, I assume it’s done a lot of damage to  the tourist trade in central Java.

We had no fixed itinerary and the time to do whatever grabs our fancy. It’s a fun way to travel and I was lucky to have the opportunity to do so. If you want to go to Toronto because Scotland is playing then go, it’s OK to travel 200 miles out of your route to see an exhibition by Magnum photographic agency. Bromo was a last minute decision. We took a bus from Yogyakarta to Malang, then a jeep to the guest house in Tumpeng.

Here is an excerpt from my journal entry for that day

“One of the luxuries in the guest house was a warm shower, it had been almost two months since Chang Mai in northern Thailand”

[I make a note in my journal of how awesome it was. When it’s 80-90 degrees every day cold showers are not too much of a hardship, but in places like Tumpeng and Chang Mai that are high in the mountains where it gets cold it’s a little different story].

“At 3 in the morning we were woken by gentle Indonesian music played in the hotel and left about 3:30 on a jeep for the rim of the volcano. There were maybe 30 or 40 jeeps parked at the rim and about as many people offering to take us on a horse into the crater. From the carpark we descended down a steep path onto the crater floor, the walk from there to the caldera from where we watched the sun rise was about 3 miles in darkness. The sky was clear and the night cold. The stars were extraordinary and gave plenty of light to follow the white painted stones by.”

“Across the crater floor we climb up a steep path and finally a staircase to the rim of the active cone. Looking down into the cone there is a slight red glow and the strong smell of sulphur. When we got to the top the sky was just starting to brighten in the east.”

“we sat with maybe 60  others watching the stars give way to the rapidly approaching dawn. As it brightens a mist started rolling over the outer rim of the volcano filling the large crater, obscuring the ground we just walked across.”

“As the sun rises we started to grasp the scale of the volcano, it’s miles across the outer rim. In the center of the crater is three smaller cones, two of which are spewing smoke, including the one we were sitting on. It was truly spectacular.”

I need to get a slide scanner so I can add some photos of Mount Bromo. The pictures really are very cool to look at, but like my words unable to do what that morning justice.

This was a spectacular time in my life, making a living racing, great travelling companion and time to enjoy it. Everyone should have a chance at the freedom at some time on their lives. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and forget how trips like this really do alter the way you look at the world.

The last week has been an interesting week, and I get I’m going to piss some people off today, but my ex had had no problem doing the same to me this week so like for like…

My ex keeps score with money, while that’s a general statement and there are exceptions, I also (and have had recent conformation with what she feels she is owed) believe it to be true. It goes back a few years when (and I quote) ”I’m high maintenance, but I earn XXX and can support”. My role in the supporting was once again minimized and that particular statement turned out not be true when we financially separated.

At this point I do want to separate value from money, she was always looking for, and was very good at finding value for money. I learned many lessons about where and how to shop for value. I’m a guy, I just want to get in and out, shopping for extended periods is not my thing.

One of the problems with keeping score with $ is that it tends to distort how you see it. Take this week, at the beginning of the month my ex was unable to pay her share of the mortgage. When I questioned why she told me that if I don’t pay it it’s my problem (and again I have the email to back all this up) and I need to look after it.

I had an e-mail promising that I’d see the money by the 15^th of November. I went ahead and covered the mortgage.

Of course the 15^th comes around and nothing, not even an e-mail to say it’s not going to happen, no reason, just nothing. This is not the first time she’s broken a written commitment about money. I’ve given her a week and I’ve had enough of the feet dragging and bullshit she is talking.

Take the interrogatories for example, they were due on the 20^th of September, and I had mine submitted on that date, I’ve updated them since, but today is the 20^th of November and after talking to my lawyer yesterday she is still not ready.

A mutual friend shared a couple of theories and tried to give some context. I get that, she is scared because it took her five months to find a job, I hope she enjoys what she is doing now. But ultimately she expected to find a job quickly and she did not. The second is because she feels “I owe her”. I’ve paid well over half the joint bills for the last five years and have the report to prove it. This is “empirical evidence”, not someone’s public claims on the wild west of the internet.

Like every story, there is my side, her side and the truth.

I’ve never discussed her financial details with anyone other than my lawyer, yet she feels that sharing details of my finances to be  perfectly acceptable. I’m tired and I’m pissed off…

Every year before the MLS Final Don Garber, the commissioner of MLS, gives what he calls a “State of the League” address. There were a number of interesting points made this year.

One important one was growing the league by making more attractive locally and making matchups a bigger deal

He said ”We’re very focused on local rivalries being a key driver of growing our club’s relevance… The phenomenon in the Pacific Northwest is something that we never could have dreamed of.”

So in a couple of short years he’s gone from being against teams using their local roots and history to embracing this as one of the ways to grow the league. Clearly this is down to the intensity of the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver games. The demand from traveling supporters for tickets is by far outstripping the league mandated 150 away tickets. The three support groups are working together and putting pressure on the front offices to accommodate larger numbers. 5% of the crowd is one number that seems to have be thrown around a lot recently as part of the debate, this is the percentage FIFA uses when I comes to away ticket allocation at internationals. This story has some distance to run and I’m sure will be resolved before the season kicks off.

Another point that got my attention was the incentive given to teams to open academies, scout and grow talent internally. This may not seem like a big deal at first glance, but after talking it over last night I think this is a significant announcement for a number of reasons.

Today a US domestic youth player has no real alternative to playing football in College. I think that’s a poor step to a professional career for a number of reasons. To be clear this argument is not about someone who sees playing football as a way to get a college education, it’s someone who has ambitions of being a professional player and the potential to back it up.

First, and sorry to harp on about Europe again but there kids are full time in the academy at 16 years old. By the time a player is 21 he’s got five years of full time coaching and five full seasons of competitive football behind him.

Secondly, not every kid fits in college. Look at some of the American Football players that colleges recruit that end up doing basket weaving in summer school because they need credits or will loose eligibility.

Comparing like-for-like, the college graduate at 21 or 22 years old has not had full time coaching and plays in the short three-month college season. The college player is way further behind on his football development curve than the academy player.

In the academy system players make (and arguably bigger) step between 16 year old with talent and professional over maybe four or five years rather than all at once when being selected in the draft. There are exceptions, players that step directly into the first team, Steve Zakuani is one, but again these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

I think if done correctly by the sides an MLS academy system give the elite kids with potential to make a living in the game a better alternative to college.

The top development league is probably Premier Development League (PDL) with around 60 teams split into eight conferences. There are a couple of other options at this level (FIFA recognize this as “Level 4” on a traditional football pyramid) in the National Premier Soccer League and the mostly Canadian based Pacific Coast Soccer League, but PDL is the one I’m most familiar with. There are a number of local teams include Kitsap Pumas, Washington Crossfire and the junior teams of the Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers.

To add a little more credibility to the elite players not playing in college football system (or the “S” word if you prefer) is Brigham Young University. BYU does not play in the NCAA alongside every other college in the country they play in the PDL. The university feels the competition is better and believe it will produce better players at the end of it. The old cliché of competition improving the breed has a lot of truth to it.

To go back to my original point and why the academy is going to be important to the MLS and the Sounders. To go along with the academy is a reserve league, next year it’s only 10 games plus playoffs. More games would be a good, but it’s a promising start.

Additionally the clubs to develop talent is the ability to sign younger players (under 24 years old) without them counting against the salary cap. There is no restriction on the number of academy players a side can sign. There are lots of incentives for a side to develop it’s own talent, it takes owners with a slightly longer term view. It may be 4 or 5 years before the effort shows, but it only takes one or two players for it to be worthwhile financially, along with increasing the sense of community that is so important to a club.

It’s been an interesting day, Tony Latham tweeted a link to Spinner.com that said the 100 Club in London may have been saved to live another day. Helped dad set up his birthday present, we got him a Kindle to give him instant gratification of book buying while laying in bed.

The MLS commissioner Don Garber gave his state of the league address, interesting, but ultimately nothing we’d not guessed already. Hot rumour on the ECS forum (www.weareecs.com) is Seattle open the season in Vancouver on March 19^th, no idea about the RBP opening game.

Maybe most importantly, I’ve made it to week-3 of Movember and my upper lip is slowly turning from “slightly fluffy caterpillar” to “thinning on top old koala”. It’s progress damn it!

At the end of September I wrote about the 100 Club closing in London (click here). It seems there may be some hope for one of London’s most atmospheric music clubs.

According to Spinner.com Pixies front man Frank Black has put up 100,000 pounds to help keep the venue open past Christmas. Hopefully this can be followed by a realistic business plan that will keep its doors open indefinitely.

Here is a clip of The Jam fronted by a very young Paul Weller playing the venue.

What a good weekend for the neutral watching the Premier League.

Top of my list was Chelsea loosing 3-0 to Sunderland, at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea started the season by scoring 17 goals in the first four games (and conceding one).

OK, less neutral I admit, more happy to see the champions come a cropper to a side with a fraction of the payroll. In the last three Chelsea have struggled, scored one, conceded five and dropped six points out of a possible 9.

Even less neutral are my thoughts on Man U (the team that finally consigned CCFC to relegation). They know how to get results, this belief is in the DNA of the club and Saturday against Villa was another example. They did not play well for most of the game, but then stepped up in the last 15 minutes and once that happened I just felt they were coming away from Villa Park with something.

Of the top teams Arsenal are playing some very pretty football, coming away with results and the three of four games of theirs I’ve seen this year were entertaining affairs. Man city have a lot left to prove and the club is doing all it can to play down the more extreme talk of titles and sweeping all before them.

But getting away from the big three of four clubs and there are some surprises. Bolton, Sunderland and Stoke are all having good years so far and taking points off top four sides. I was looking at the stats (warning, about to get my geek on) and the stats show that one or two players on each of these sides are making a difference.

The clearest example, I think, they spent a significant amount of money on a player, in this case it’s Kenwyn Jones. Stoke paid 8 million pounds for him, a club record by some distance. That sort of money does not cover the matchday hospitality bill at some clubs.

What did Stoke get for their money?

So far Jones in 2010 has scored five times and had a hand in 7 or 8 other goals. Stoke manager Peter Coates has made Jones the go-to striker. The attack is built around his speed and vision, which when you spent comparatively huge amounts of money on a single player makes sense. This produces a more attacking style of football and for some sides is playing dividends and producing some fun football to watch.

Sunderland have gone the same route with signing Asamoah Gyan for 13 million pounds from France in the off season. He has fulfilled much the same role as Jones at Stoke with similar success.

I think the move to smaller 25 man squads has helped establish a little more parity, but teams that are going out from the start to attack the top sides are regularly coming away with points. Again looking at the Villa-Man U game, the top clubs have the ability to score late and don’t panic when they are down with 10 minutes left to play. They know if they press opportunities will come to them.

What we’d traditionally call a “smaller club” does not have the same ability to step up and control a game like that. They have to create the opportunities to get ahead and take them. They can’t afford to sit back because the big four are too good and will score, they need to take the game to the other side and signing a solid striker makes that style of play more effective.

It’s making for a more interesting year, it does feel some of the inevitability of the big clubs winning has gone. I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference to who wins the league; it’s still going to be from the usual suspects.

As a Coventry City supporter, I have a feeling I’ll be a Premier League neutral for a few years yet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently and this is an attempt to distill my thoughts and those sent to me in e-mails and the comments I received on this particular subject.

• You are not a substitute for the other bio-parent. “You can’t tell me this because you are not my dad” You live in our house and I pay some of your bills, so when you are under this roof, yes I can. I’m an addition to their life, not a substitute.
• The better the step kids relationship with both their own parents, the better your relationship will be with them. My relationship is made easier by them getting on with both households. Everyone is less stressed and life is so much easier.
• Perhaps the golden rule, don’t allow the bio-parents to bad mouth each other, even little barb filled comments will confuse and cause the kids to be defensive. Never, ever do this when the kids are around, even the sarcastic tone on the phone will cause loyalty issues and trouble in the house. This I speak from painful, painful experience.
• Reinforcing time and time again that the current situation is not their fault. They may have preferred it when they were a family, or when it was just them and mum, but life changes and the mum and dad are not getting back together, and it’s not their fault that happened. Getting a stepparent reinforces that mum and dad are not getting back together.
• Be firm with your boundaries, if you are uncomfortable doing something with the kids, taking them to school every day, supervising when the bio-parent is gone, discipline or what ever it is. If you don’t want to do it talk it out, but when you are uncomfortable let the bio-parent know.
• Read some of the books on the subject, share concerns and get professional help from a good family therapist in how the household should be set up, house rules and so on.
• Authority of the stepparent comes through the bio-parent this touches on the other five rules in some way and if there is a golden rule, this is it. Any authority the stepparent has comes from the bio-parent and how they are treated. This can take the form of playing adults off against each other, or one parent referring to the family home as “my house” and not “our house”. Any little hint that the stepparent is seen in a lesser light is a potential OK to treat them the same way.

These are my thoughts mixed with a lot of input from others, I’m still shocked by hte interest and feedback this particular series of posts have generate.. So to Ludmilla, Karol, Elenor, Steven, Jill, Marcus and a few other, thank you for sharing your stories, it helps.

I think there is a book in this experiance somewhere. If anyone else has any comments thoughts or think I’m wrong, feel free to e-mail me at dave (at) davekean.com.