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Football Daily | Royal Rumbles and low-block blues: the Premier League’s style problem

Football Daily | Royal Rumbles and low-block blues: the Premier League’s style problem

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Following Liverpool’s win over Lille to qualify for the knockout stages of Bigger Cup last season, Arne Slot famously revealed that his father had been less than impressed. “There have definitely not been many [Liverpool] games where he has said: ‘Oh I like what I saw!’” sighed Slot of his old man, who presumably views a 4-0 win with the same grim Dutch disdain one might reserve for a lukewarm stroopwafel. This past weekend it became apparent that the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree, as the Liverpool head coach told hacks that even he isn’t particularly impressed with the quality of football in the Premier League, although the nature of Arsenal’s attritional Six Nations win over Chelsea may have won him over. Less than two weeks between hoping that ‘courage and confidence can arrest Tottenham’s slide’ and saying : ‘We are lacking when we attack, we lack the quality to score the goal. We are lacking in the middle to run and we are lacking behind to stay there to suffer and not concede the goal. So, an amazing situation. Amazing.’ Spurs are just like if the late Byzantine court had a football club, but with marginally fewer ritual blindings” – Noble Francis. ​​​​ If the Spurs caretaker manager’s post-game assessment of the loss to Fulham is accurate, his club may have missed a huge opportunity by not hiring a tutor instead of a Tudor” – Peter Oh. On Saturday a group of four old (very old) friends and I attended the Hearts v Aberdeen match at Tynecastle. Many years ago we were all regular Hearts turnstile pushers, but as time passed we all now live in widely separated locales. However, once a year, we still make a point of booking tickets, hospitality and an overnight stay in Edinburgh, just for old time’s sake. (Our journeys do indeed make use of trains, planes and automobiles. Oh, and a coach.) This year we pushed the boat out and booked rooms in the bijou little hotel within the Tynecastle fortress itself. On Sunday morning one friend and I had already checked out and were waiting for the others to appear. Out of nowhere a man in a Hearts jumper came through reception – ‘Can I help you boys?’ [Boys!] We explained we were just waiting on friends. He continued: ‘While you’re hanging on, do you want to come and have a look at the changing rooms?’ So he took us to the changing rooms, showers, medical centre, warm-up room, etc … and then out to the pitch. He took pictures of us in the tunnel and sitting in the dugout! For two old men who have supported Hearts through 50-plus years of disappointment and rare glory, this was almost unbelievable. I had to keep pinching myself. At one point he said: ‘They don’t have a big communal bath like in the old days. There’s showers instead. But there is one single bath still available for whoever wants it and gets it first. We call it “The Cammy Devlin Bath”, on account of the number of red cards he gets!’” – Ken Muir. Continue reading...

Philharmonia/ Schwarz/ Ólafsson review – a masterclass in pianissimo

Philharmonia/ Schwarz/ Ólafsson review – a masterclass in pianissimo

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London Marking György Kurtág’s 100th birthday, Elena Schwarz and Víkingur Ólafsson led a programme of hushed intensity and fleeting ferocity During this celebration of the 100th birthday of György Kurtág , a composer associated above all with what the concert’s presenter Tom Service called “intense quiet”, the occasional louder moments were breathtaking. There was a phrase in Víkingur Ólafsson ’s piano arrangement of Bach’s Air on the G String that briefly bared its own musculature, as tenderly firm as a parent lifting a baby. There were a few snatched, jagged edges in Kurtág’s Hommage à R Sch when viola and clarinet snarled against Ólafsson’s silken piano. There was the fierce, impassioned opening of Mark Simpson ’s Hommage à Kurtág. And there was the monumental Old Testament brass that boomed fleetingly across Kurtág’s … quasi una fantasia … Op 27 No 1 before dropping away to unveil a delicate skein of string harmonics. Otherwise, this programme revelled in Kurtág’s many shades of pianissimo. Nine of his works – none lasting more than 10 minutes, most much shorter – were interspersed by comparably crystalline pieces by others (Schumann, Simpson, Webern, Bach). Ólafsson featured in most. Often bent deeply over the keyboard, he handled every barely audible note as if priceless. Continue reading...