Shane Richmond

Just one book last month? Well, I did spent most of the month on my second run through Infinite Jest and, besides, I have a backlog of reviews to write.

Book 17: Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

Anyone who has followed English football closely in recent years will have nodded along grimly with last night’s Panorama [available on iPlayer for the next 12 months, it seems], which examined the game’s worrying reliance on debt.

There was little that was new but a few nuggets made the programme worth watching. Reporter John Sweeney focused on Manchester United and the debts loaded onto it by the Glazer family. He explored the Glazer’s finances and raised questions about levels of debt across their business empire.

It wasn’t surprising that the Glazers and Manchester United refused to speak to Panorama but I was surprised that the FA, the Premier League and the new sports minister all declined to be interviewed. It’s a measure of how seriously the football authorities take the problem that they couldn’t be bothered to provide a talking head, even to argue that everything is fine.

It was hard, though, to muster much sympathy for the aggrieved Manchester United fans who popped up throughout the programme. Having hoovered up trophy after trophy as the Premier League’s Big Four carved up English football among themselves, they’re now realising that there’s a bill to pay for their gluttony. Sorry lads, that’s modern football and it’s the monster you have spent 20 years creating.

Club after club has gone to the wall over the last two decades (with surprisingly little protest from Manchester United fans) and football’s finances have not yet been reformed. Perhaps nothing will happen until a big club goes under. In that sense at least, Manchester United has my full support.

New York magazine asks six writers to list their six favourite books. William Gibson recommends sci-fi, Peter Carey offers his suggestions for historical fiction, Kathryn Harrison does memoirs, Simon Rich handles humour, Rebecca Skloot looks at science writing and the owner of the Mysterious Bookshop recommends some thrillers.

Of the 58 books listed, I’ve read just five. Carey’s list looks the best but Harrison’s was more interesting than I expected.

Three more books last month. Here they are:

Book 14: Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Book 15: Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Book 16: Why England Lose by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

Music industry insiders have called on the Government to use the powers of the Digital Economy Act to crack down on Pete Waterman’s Eurovision Song Contest entries.

Following the UK’s humiliation at last night’s Contest, in which Waterman’s That Sounds Good To Me finished last, some in the music industry have decided that enough is enough.

“The public doesn’t realise the damage that Pete Waterman is doing,” one insider said. “They think that indulging in a little Pete Waterman now and then is ok but we’re in danger of becoming a laughing stock in Europe.”

“It’s time for the Government to implement a three strikes system,” the insider added. “Waterman needs to get a letter warning him that if he persists in writing Eurovision songs then he will have something cut off.”

One middle-aged woman who was leaving a pub draped in the Union Flag agreed: “Waterman’s song was awful. The only way the Europeans could have hated us more is if we’d got Bono to sing it. Thank goodness he’s got a bad back or we wouldn’t even have got 10 points.”

However, another music industry insider defended Waterman: “He’s been writing songs for a long time now. Based on the law of averages alone, we thought he would write a good one eventually.”

Industry officials are said to have been locked in all-night talks in an attempt to ensure that Britain is more competitive next year. One plan is to have Simon Cowell choose the winning song. However, there are fears that Cowell’s effect could be limited without a three month long advert for his song on prime time ITV.

“Cowell’s idea of great music is a fusion of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey circa 1989,” said my source. “The furthest he got on his own was Sinitta. Without ITV and some manipulative soap opera tricks, he’s got nothing.”

The current favourite plan is to make Lily Allen do it. “It’s in her contract,” said the insider. “Every British artist has a clause in their contract that says we can make them do Eurovision if we want. They never check the small print.”

[Author's note: None of the above is true. Well, except for the facts that Pete Waterman did write Britain's Eurovision entry and it did terribly. The rest is made up.]

It’s time for my annual moan about the Premier League and how it’s killing English football. There are a variety of approaches one can take to make this case. Anyone who prefers the financial approach would be advised to read David Conn’s The Beautiful Game?, which I wrote about last year at 26 Books. I prefer to look at competition.

Last weekend Chelsea won the Premier League, making them English football champions for the third time in six seasons. Yesterday they added the FA Cup to their haul. Chelsea have won the Cup six times altogether – three of their four wins in the Premier League era have come in the last four years.

Winning both trophies means that they have completed ‘the Double’. That used to be quite a feat. Between 1889 and 1992 just five clubs managed it. Since the 1992-93 season, the Premier League’s first, there have been six Doubles – Chelsea’s this season, Arsenal in 1998 and 2002 and Manchester United in 1994, 1996 and 1999. In other words, something that used to happen once every 20 years or so now happens, on average, every three years.

The fact that four of those Doubles were won in the 90s could be seen as a sign that the Premier League is opening up but other evidence suggests that is not the case.

Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool have dominated English football since the 1992-1993 season. Here’s how each competition breaks down:

Premier League
Winning clubs: 4
Big Four trophies: 17 of 18

FA Cup
Winning clubs: 6
Big Four wins: 16 of 18

League Cup
Winning clubs: 9
Big Four wins: 10 of 18

Eleven different clubs have won the Premier League, the FA Cup or the League Cup in the 18 seasons since the Premier League began. Out of 54 possible trophies, the Big Four have lifted 43.

And how did the previous 18 seasons compare?

League
Winning clubs: 7

FA Cup
Winning clubs: 10

League Cup
Winning clubs: 11

A total of 19 different clubs won trophies in those years. The league and FA Cup were almost twice as competitive. Only the League Cup had a similar number of winners.

Are things getting less competitive? In the first nine seasons of the Premier League the Big Four won 20 of a possible 27 trophies. Since then they’ve won 23 of a possible 27. I don’t know whether that’s statistically significant but it’s certainly not encouraging.

For the last two seasons Chelsea and Manchester United between them have won all three major English trophies. It’s too early to call that a trend but perhaps the Big Four is becoming a Big Two.

Last month’s reading list:

Book 10: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Book 11: White Noise by Don DeLillo
Book 12: Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson
Book 13: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Here’s what I read in March:

Book 7: The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction by Martin Priestman
Book 8: Trent’s Last Case by E C Bentley
Book 9: Sunnyside by Glen David Gold

Here’s a nice idea. A photo of every painting on display last Saturday at New York’s Museum of Modern Art:

I spent some time today drawing up a list of favourite albums – one for each year of my life so far. It’s something I’ve been meaning to post since I read about the idea on Phil Edwards’ blog – almost two years ago. Still, I got there in the end.

I added a couple of rules for myself. First, I decided not to use any artist more than once. Second, I’ve restricted myself to albums that I own – so no records that I remember fondly from my youth but no longer have a copy of. It’s very much written from my present perspective; I wasn’t that big a fan of Kraftwerk when I was four, for example.

Here’s the list. Where available, I’ve linked to the album on Spotify.

1974: Stevie Wonder, Fulfillingness’ First Finale
1975: Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
1976: David Bowie, Station to Station
1977: Brian Eno, Before and After Science
1978: Kraftwerk, Die Mensch-Maschine
1979: Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps
1980: Elvis Costello, Get Happy!
1981: Soft Cell, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
1982: Sun Ra, Nuclear War
1983: Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes
1984: The Fall, The Wonderful and Frightening World of
1985: Tom Waits, Rain Dogs
1986: REM, Lifes Rich Pageant
1987: Prince, Sign O The Times
1988: Pixies, Surfer Rosa
1989: The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
1990: A Tribe Called Quest, People’s Instinctive Travels…
1991: Massive Attack, Blue Lines
1992: Sugar, Copper Blue
1993: Morphine, Cure For Pain
1994: Pulp, His ‘n’ Hers
1995: Bjork, Post
1996: Belle & Sebastian, If You’re Feeling Sinister
1997: Radiohead, OK Computer
1998: Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
1999: Mos Def, Black on Both Sides
2000: Outkast, Stankonia
2001: Matthew Herbert, Bodily Functions
2002: The Roots, Phrenology
2003: The Postal Service, Give Up
2004: Republic of Loose, This is the Tomb of the Juice
2005: Roots Manuva, Awfully Deep
2006: TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
2007: Hanne Hukkelberg, Rykestrasse 68
2008: Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
2009: The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love

The list itself surprises me in how mainstream it is. It’s not easy to choose just one album for a given year and I think I’m a sucker for the idea of ‘the classic’ album. Perhaps I’ll do this again another time and pick my second favourite for each year.

Yes it’s anoraky to make lists (and I did say this blog was turning entirely into a blog of lists) but I’d recommend that you try it yourself. It’s an englightening way to chart your life.