Thoughts on... World Cup 2014

Why Spain won't win, why Argentina could, and why Brazil probably will

 

It's never nice to see bold predictions spectacularly backfire, as Dutch journalist Simon Kuper learned last night. But I'm going to make some anyway.

 

 1. Spain won't win again

Simply put, Spain are far too close in organisation and style to club side Barcelona, who ended this season without a trophy for the first time in six years. There are seven Barcelona players in the Spain squad. Real have three, and league champions Atletico have four. Five of those Barca players started last night's game, and Pedro came on during the second half.  

 
Both sides monopolise possession. Both sides have struggled to score goals recently, with Barca's end-of-season form particularly unsettling from a Spanish perspective. The numbers are very similar: Spain controlled matches with 65% possession at the last World Cup and a staggering 68% at Euro 2012. Barca's record is very similar, with 67% in 2010 and 68% in 2012. Real Madrid, la seleccion's other main source of players, offered 56% in both 2010 and 2012.

Goals have also been hard to come by for Spanish strikers, with only Brazil-born Diego Costa scoring more than 20 goals in his respective league this season. Whilst Spain have relied on a solid defence and vast amounts of the ball to control matches, the signs last night were ominous. 

Ramos, tormented by Robben, appears to have left his form in Lisbon. Pique seems affected by that anxiety and exhaustion that has consumed the blaugrana in their final weeks. And perhaps Casillas (above), struggling for game time, has finally hit the wall after a career laden with awards. With all of these barriers to overcome, it will not be La Roja who lift the trophy in the Maracana.

 

2. Brazil enjoy home comforts

 

As Nate Silver's noted, Brazil are nearly unbeatable at home when it really counts. Leaving aside a very streaky performance versus a bold, adventurous Croatia, Group A should hold no further worries for them, with a Mexico side rebounding from a dismal 12 months and a Cameroon side yet again distracted by pay issues from its FA.

 

Plenty of commentators have observed the near-religious fervor the team experiences in Brazil, and it is very tempting to wonder how much of Thursday's performance was down to nerves. Scolari's side do look very vulnerable to thrusting counterattacks down the wings, with Alves particularly at fault on Thursday evening, and sides that can capitalise on this will enjoy chances aplenty. But Brazil rarely come apart when it really matters, and still boast a team spread across Europe complete with genuine stars - Neymar (above) and Thiago Silva being the standouts. 

 

But the most compelling reason for tipping Brazil lies in their history at home. As mentioned, the last time Brazil last lost a competitive match in their home country was 1975. The only surprise is that bookmakers have not chosen the hosts as their runaway favourites - for that is what the form book suggests. 

 

3. Belgium will struggle

 

Every serious football hipster wants to see Belgium do well. And with a squad containing some of Europe's premier talents, it's likely they'll make short work of a group that offers only Russia as the serious competition. Hazard, De Bruyne, Kompany and co will also see the tournament as a chance to make a dent on the 'good on paper' theory plenty will subscribe to.
 
Their weak point, unfortunately, is a lack of goals. Although plenty of the team have contributed, Christian Benteke is their top scorer with six goals since 2010. And with Benteke out through the injury, Belgium will need to find goals from elsewhere - and on current form at this World Cup, lots of them.
 

The other significant problem is Belgium's second round opponents, who will probably be either Germany or Portugal. Portugal may not possess as much strength in depth as their illustrious group counterparts, but in Ronaldo they will offer every team a serious threat and a backing squad of Joao Moutinho, Pepe, Fabio Coentrao and Varela will keep Belgium occupied. This is probably two years too early. Expect big things in 2016. 

 

4. Argentina should run Brazil close

 

La Albiceleste are ranked as second favourites to lift the Jules Rimet trophy behind the hosts Brazil, but leaving aside home advantage, the Argentines possess a far stronger squad than almost everyone else, bar the Germans and Spain. A dazzling forward line containing Higuain (right), Aguero and Lionel Messi is backed up by a renascent Fernando Gago and Real Madrid's Champions League final architect, Angel di Maria.

 

Statistically they are South America's deadliest side - with the highest ball retention figure at 85% and more goals (35) than every other side, they will run riot in a weak group containing Bosnia-Herzegovina, Nigeria and Iran. They have scored two goals or more in more than a third of all games since 2010, and that habit of building unassailable leads will be important in sticky, sapping conditions. And with potentially the easiest route to the final of all of the favourites, the neutrals have more than one reason to hedge their bets on Brazil's hated neighbours winning in their backyard.

 

5. Sometimes statistics count for nothing

 

Jonathan Liew makes England to be statistically the model team for winning the World Cup. And that's really why you should take all of the above with a large pinch of cachaça.

Photos from Soccer Lens and The Guardian

 

Speechless!                          

Ivan Rakitic was lost for words against Valencia. It's the perfect expression of La Liga's most underrated player

 

Sevilla's captain Ivan Rakitic gave an interview on Thursday night after Stephane M'bia's last-gasp, last-minute goal sent them through to a Europa League final in Turin that they hadn't even qualified for. It was a classic. "It's ... pfff ... erm ... ahh ... what do you want me to say?"

Sort of an anti-quote, if you like. It grabs the eye because of its lack of anything definitive expressed. A verbal shrug of the shoulders, pure emotion encapsulated in a few short words. And yet this was much more tangible than almost every other interview given in football this week. Sid Lowe put it best; it is why we watch football.

It put the humanity back in the game, it expressed (or rather, didn't) everything the ordinary fan experiences. And it came from a man who, fittingly, would be called John if he were born in this country.

Some names appear to be destined for large, flashing lights, masses of people in a particular part of the world screaming their name, and overt sexual requests on Twitter. Cristiano Ronaldo. Neymar Junior. These men would never be dentists, or salespeople. And yet Rakitic is as integral to his team as Ronaldo, and statistically has performed better than Neymar all season, at a smaller club with infinitely smaller resources. Case in point: Sevilla's wage budget this season is €41 million. Barca's is €195 million.

Ivan Rakitic sounds like he could be an ordinary guy, and continuing the name-as-occupation theme, he could easily be a postman. Or some sort of eyecare consultant. As mentioned, the name 'Ivan' is the Slavic derivation of 'John', and we all know a John. If he plays a sport, it's snooker, or maybe badminton. He's probably an accountant, he's generally quite dependable, he's attractive to a reasonable percentage of the opposite sex.

Neymar, Brazil's no 10, seems to exist in some ethereal nickname hinterland, probably with a variety of other Brazilian number tens, an amalgamation of Brazilian society, sports merchandising and football history. He's emblematic of contemporary superstardom - a man defined more by ideas, ad campaigns, than flesh and blood. Perhaps that is why his performances this year have not always grabbed the eye - as if we weren't quite dialled in to the right frequency, he seems to have disappeared and then burst back into focus. It is as though the metaphysical has become physical and is now crushing the life out of Brazil's new favourite son.

 

My point, anyway, is that despite Rakitic consistently outperforming one of the world's most famous players, and star of Nike's latest fantasy football ad, it appears he does not garner the same adulation. Why?

 

His club is an important part of that. Rakitic plays for Sevilla, not Real, nor Barcelona, who dwarf their respective counterparts to such an extent it once prompted Diego Simeone, Atletico Madrid's manager, to pronounce the league 'a boring championship for the rest of the supporters who can only aspire to be third or fourth.' That Simeone is rightly being hailed as a masterful coach on the verge of a Champions League and league double with Atleti is evidence of this.

This season Sevilla are 5th, six points off Athletic for the final qualifying Champions League place, after two consecutive ninth placed finishes. They're only in Europe because UEFA kicked Malaga and Rayo Vallecano for overzealous spending and financial 'irregularities'. Although a 3-0 defeat to the Basques last weekend means that it's likely Sevilla will play Europa, not Champions League football next season, their upswing in form has been nothing short of amazing. Rakitic has been with the club since 2011 after joining from Schalke 04, and after a slightly slow start, this seems to be the season everything has clicked.

The most obvious evidence is his goals to games ratio. As a Sevilla player he has 27 goals in three years. He has scored 12 of those this season, and made 10 more, pushing Sevilla up the table. He's also part of a Sevilla team that is considerably more durable, turning losses and draws into draws and wins. Only Ronaldo, Diego Costa and team-mate Kevin Gameiro have scored more goals than him in the last 15 minutes of a match, making Sevilla, along with Madrid, a consistently difficult side to beat - and particularly dangerous in the final few moments, never better evidenced than that last, unbelievable minute against Valencia on Thursday night.

Rakitic is also part of a midfield which retains the ball expertly whether home or away - they play nearly 50% of their football in the middle third in the pitch - and work hard to retrieve it, with the highest pass interception rate of all the top 5 teams.

Whilst he has always featured in the centre of midfield, it's the number 10 role which has apparently made him a target for Napoli and Liverpool. He can score from anywhere in midfield but all of his ten assists this season have come from him playing as an attacking central midfielder. Such is his importance to Sevilla that he has a higher pass completion rate than any of his team-mates - it currently stands at 79.6%, comparable to the league's best players, including Bale and Ronaldo at Madrid.

Finally his skill with playing long balls means he's highly effective at shifting the point of play very quickly, which would probably appeal to Brendan Rodgers, currently using Steven Gerrard in a similar role, and Rafa Benitez, who of course signed Xabi Alonso for Liverpool upon joining the club.

Rakitic is due to play at this year's World Cup for Croatia alongside Madrid's Luka Modric, who has had an outstanding year playing as one of Ancelotti's volantes in his 'Christmas tree' formation. His opponents? Mexico, Cameroon - and Brazil. It will be interesting to see how a man who fronts an ad campaign for a bank - connection: the bank is Brazilian - faces up to a man who has outperformed him all season, but can't even give a quote after a football match.

 

Pic courtesy of The Star

 

Review: Bounce (Matthew Syed)

 

Full disclosure: the picture above is from MumsNet. Now I know how my dad felt when he started agreeing with Billy Bragg on Question Time.

Sharing common ground with a website for surfing mums wasn't the only eyebrow-raising moment for me when it came to Bounce. In journalist and ex-table tennis World Champion Matthew Syed's analysis of contemporary sporting culture, quotes from Dragon's Den's Duncan Bannatyne and literary novelist Howard Jacobsen  feature on the same cover.

 

What's next? I thought, thumbing through pages. Roy Keane, secret football managerial genius? Gillette are the root cause of Roger Federer's superlative tennis career? Drugs should be made legal in sport?

Actually that last one is in the book.

I read much of this with varying degrees of surprise. Syed gleefully informs his audience as early as possible - i.e. the opening chapter - that much of his world-conquering status was predicated on living in a suburb in Reading, and his efforts since that point can be traced back to that single street.

 

Success, says Syed, is predominantly based on equality of opportunity - even now something of a controversial idea, until you realise how far off many institutions are from the things he is talking about. His assertion is that simply providing the right facilities, open to all, is enough - in his case, a shed where any member of his table tennis club could practice. The rest, as Syed's life illustrates, comes down to regular practice and enjoyment of whatever it is you're doing.
 

Some of the ideas, such as the oft-quoted 10,000 hours theory (courtesy of Outliers' Malcolm Gladwell), are backed up with compelling rhetoric and excellent examples. The most successful debunking occurs with Syed analysing the young years of Wolfgang Mozart and finds that, contrary to the found opinion that he was a 'born genius', he was the product of an intensely driven father who trained the young Mozart from his baby years. As for genius, Mozart had been writing music since the age of 5, when he created Andante in C - nothing more profound than 15 solid years of practice.

 

But it's the less fashionable stuff that really creates an impression. Syed discusses at length the career of minister Norman Peale, a New Yorker who is widely credited with creating the world's first self-help book which claimed belief in almost anything can both reduce stress and improve performance.

 

One of the best, and most refreshing elements of Bounce is the author's unapologetically open outlook to all manner of ideas, even the stuff generally perceived as weird or uncool. The terms 'self help' and  'life coaches' are deservedly treated with contempt by many not due to their spiritually empty nature, but their clear lack of evidence-based reasoning, with little recognition of the historical precedents. Amongst many, the profession ranks alongside televangelism for all-out nonsense, and appears outmoded in thought.

 

And so he deserves great credit for including a man like Peale, not only for the historical precedent but for the ripple effects felt throughout professional sport today. It's fair to say Peale's theories enabled a greater scientific understanding of what affects sportsmen, and after Glenn Hoddle's dalliance with Eileen Drewery, later derided as a crackpot, it should escape no-one's attention that England manager Roy Hodgson has returned to the well (albeit for professional, rather than amateur, assistance) to employ professional sports psychologist Steve Peters for England's World Cup 2014 campaign.   

 

Arguably best of all, is the manner in which Syed makes the theory flesh in all sorts of fascinating ways. On an investigation into Kenyan genes and their effects on long distance running, the former Olympic champion is found living a humble lifestyle in a tent with his wife - quite the unconscious comment on sporting contemporaries such as Lewis Hamilton and Wayne Rooney. Such eye for detail belies his second career as a sports journalist. And in one of the book's more sombre episodes, Syed goes to visit a former East German athlete whose life changes - literally - following her indoctrination into the East German Olympic training program as a young woman.

 

He balances this genuine tragedy alongside another of his counterintuitive questions with emotional good sense and some panache - should all drugs be made safe and legal to use in athletics? The success of the chapter can be found in the sensitive way Syed handles the anonymous brutality of a Cold War state with a more contemporary flavour. Unlike many in his field, he's an excellent moralist - ironically because it forms no part of his outlook, becoming invisible in his conclusions. 

 

The foundation for this book's success can be found in one of Syed's own anecdotes, retelling his unfortunate thrashing in the first round at the 2008 Olympics. Afterwards, he's informed he focused on the event and the outcome too much. It makes no grand statements, seeks no unassailable positions; it has a frankly terrible front cover. But in focusing on the details, the conclusion takes care of itself - and that has broader repercussions for all of us.

 

 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1927 - 2014 

 

During the latter stages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude, a character returns from the dead. His reason? Loneliness. 

 

Whilst that in itself is a funny and sharply insightful remark, it almost feels like a sleight of hand trick to deceive the most intelligent of readers. Ignoring the metaphorical intent for a moment, consider: a man returns from death, and no one really bats an eyelid when he provides an explanation.

 

The novel is stuffed with clever allusions which are partly illusory in this way - how Garcia Marquez managed to build a state of normality out of the strangest happenings is the book's foundation, and was probably created from two founts - his grandmother, whose deadpan style is recounted in Saldivar Dasso's Garcia Marquez: Journey From The Seeds.

 

The second comes from history itself and there's no doubt a man of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's wit noticed that the fuenta of his novel could be taken from numerous streams of life. The banana massacre, one of the very few episodes laced with anger venomous wit, actually happened in 1928 in Ciénaga, Colombia.  

 

In this novel, death, like everything else, is treated simply as an event in a circular existence, and it feels now as though, particularly with regards to mortality, Garcia Marquez was writing about the novel itself as well as the history of his country and its inhabitants. David Nicholson's 1970 review makes clear how the novel was considered to be on its uppers in the in the decade, and there's a revealing chapter in Gore Vidal's Selected Essays which reveals the newly created chasms in reading habits of east coast Americans via the NY Times bestseller list.

In short, a very rapid advancement in media, television had done for much of contemporary literature - or so it was thought. It's particularly ironic that the autocratic governments popping up all over South America contrived to produce some of the most joyous and freethinking writing seen in the 20th century, including the Kerouacs et al of the 50s.

Marquez had been at the forefront of that vanguard, working as a journalist in Barranquilla and then Caracas, Venezuela as a columnist and the principal reason for the near-airless gap between him and his characters throughout his career is surely down to these formative years. Through sheer practice, Marquez had become the writer's writer.

 

One Hundred Years is the only Nobel-winning book I've read more than once. On a sliding scale of 'chore' to 'joy to read', the latter is definitely the permanent resting place for this book. I first read the book before going to university and at the time enjoyed the stories for their ridiculous natures.

 

I read it again aged 21 after graduating and then I enjoyed the subtexts; having three years of looking at the ingredients, not the cake, had really changed my outlook to all sorts of literature, and I became a bit of a snob for it.

 

Describing my thoughts now, I still love the same things about the book but age - I'm 30 this year - has helped me marry the dual elements above through reading a larger array of books, from pop culture through to inscrutably weird. That cyclical journey, that on the face has no overtly changed from 12 years ago - is an enduring reason of my love for Marquez's finest work; because, at the end, I can relate to what he is saying, and why he is saying it.

Picture thanks to PicLab

Fat Chance

 The second article in a series examining the contributory factors to obesity in the UK.

So, over here I looked at costs associated with food, including average annual inflationary rates for food and fuel, and pressures on affordability, i.e real incomes, alongside a broad definition of what people were eating and who was eating what from a 'socioeconomic' perspective.

In this article I'm going to look at that last element in more detail, and perhaps find out what's driving those spending habits. I'm also going to look at look at contributory factors to cost - specifically, where is our food coming from?

Before we get started however, I suggest you click here and download the government's Food Pocketbook 2013. It's an invaluable guide, produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and one I have pilfered from extensively when looking at the above subjects.

But first I'm going to look at what we're not eating - but are buying. Whilst we are definitely moving towards buying a basket of goods with more preservatives added, as 2013's GVA chart on food manufacturing showed, we are still buying food that enables us to have a rounded diet. Price, and therefore affordability, have a correlative relationship with what ends up in the bin. Evidence from 2010's DEFRA report suggests that 15% of all household food and drink is 'wasted' . From this overall figure, the three items we throw away the most are:

1. Bread
2. Vegetables and potatoes
3. Fruit

The three items we're least likely to throw away are:

1. Alcoholic drinks
2. Soft drinks
3. Dairy and eggs

Best to bear in mind we are not throwing away items that are past their sell by date - there is merely a perception that the food is past it's best. That's an interesting nuance.

The most obvious difference between the two lists is the quality of nutrition in each one. There is next to no nutritional value in alcohol or soft drinks, but they are significantly more expensive than fruit and vegetables; therefore there appears to be a perception we can afford to throw away more. Our appetite seems to be tied to financial cost, and not physical health. This may be a major factor in declining health in many British adults.

It's also important to add there are stabilizers and preservatives in soft drinks and alcohol which don't exist in most fresh produce (although it probably isn't true that there are no preservatives sprayed onto fruit and vegetables - it's just that many regulatory bodies don't ask for it). As a result, we're also less likely to chuck it out because it's 'gone off'.

Not only are we wasting food here, we are wasting vast amounts of money. Although fruit and vegetables remain near the bottom of the cheapest goods on offer to shoppers, a more instructive number can be found when looking at price rises per food group between 2007-2013 - approximately the years when many Britons have seen incomes decrease in real terms.

Every food group has increase in price over the six years. Although some of that is to be expected in line with CPI, the numbers are still quite striking. Fruit has increased in price by 34%. Potatoes and vegetables are up by 31%. Meat has increased by 34%, which illustrates the crushing pressures many British retailers are experiencing in trying to remain competitive in consumer eyes (and also goes some way to explaining the horse meat controversy). Butter, margarine and cooking oil - traditionally staple bases of much of British cooking, particularly those on low incomes - increased the most, by 55%. 

It's tempting to say these figures are misleading when considering the basic price of an apple versus a steak, and relatively speaking, on a ratio of 1.1, there is no major loss in throwing away the apple. But do that hundreds, thousands of times, and it becomes easier to see why weight is becoming an issue.

So what are Britons eating, and how much of it are they eating? The 2013 Food Pocket Book lays out the 'eatwell' plate, with set percentages of foodstuffs to follow for a healthy diet. One third of your diet should, for example, include fruit and vegetables, and another 33% on bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and other starchy foods.

Just 8% of your diet should consist of fatty or sugary foods. But when looking at the diet makeup of the average British person in 2011, 22% of their diet consisted of those things, or almost three times the recommendation.

The most concerning result of all of this is that there appears to have been a long term decline in purchasing of what we'd call 'healthy' food amongst the poorest families - i.e. fruit, vegetables, carcase meat (i.e. not processed/reformed). Within that demographic there's also a long term move away from foodstuffs with short shelf life towards goods with preservatives and long life items - a strong indicator of downward pressures on wages.

Between 2007 and 2011 this group of people 20% more flour, 14% more non-carcase meats, 7% more cheese and 5% more confectionary. The obvious correlation between many of these items is price vs life - sweets and flour are long life, cheese is mid-life produce with a typical shelf life of 4 weeks, and non-carcase meat - i.e. processed meats - are consequently considerably cheaper than their carcase alternatives, and therefore can be 'wasted' more often.

So what are the main factors in cost? It's difficult to measure things like marketing budgets and import costs on food. So Defra have helpfully used something called the 'farm-gate' value - i.e. the net value of the item once those things have been subtracted from the gross value - to link a value to each foodstuff, and where it came from.

The first interesting thing to note is that as of 2012 Britain actually produced quite a lot of its own food. This might not be surprising regarding stuff like veg due to our fertile climate and significant farming communities, but it is surprising when once again looking at the horse meat issue. The rationale fr this occurrence was that food pricing in the UK is too high, and as consumer perception does not match real value of food. This drove most high street retailers abroad.

Except it didn't. As of 2012, 83% of all non-processed meat in the UK came from the UK. We actually produce more poultry now than we have ever done previously. The key indicator is our production of red meat - because of the beef export ban linked to things like CJD, there is less impetus for UK farmers to farm cattle.

Therefore the retail market goes into the EU and further to sate the customer demand, and this is where the supply chain breaks down - as people like Jay Rayner have pointed out previously, on multiple occasions, it's very likely supermarkets have painted themselves into a corner that's difficult to get out of when it comes to pricing. HMRC's import/export ratio on meat tells the story with clinical details. We export around £2 billion yet import just over £5 billion each year.

So, although there's a clear economic benefit to importing from within the Eurozone, there are also clear pitfalls to be found when basic foodstuffs increase in price - and the Eurozone doesn't guarantee fixed prices in a global market, as the two examples below show.

The table below is taken from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. As well as more domestic issues like those described above, you can see how, for example, the rapidly expanding Chinese middle class and slowly rebounding Japanese economy have both contributed to the sharp upward turn in meat prices, particularly beef.

This is taken from a World Bank article in 2013 as food costs started to level out. Here's what the global costs look like for customers in graph form since the turn of the century.

 

So global trade has dramatically altered the purchasing power for supermarkets and other grocers, and has unfortunately produced the sort of weird behaviours you'd expect to see with underperforming businesses who are experiencing long term capital and income problems, not behemoths such as Tesco and Aldi.

It's obvious then from all of the above that three key things have changed in diets in British people over the last 6-7 years. The first is that cost, not nutrition, is driving choices in supermarkets. The second, which is linked to the first, denotes a clear shift in attitudes towards 'value' when retaining food - i.e. we are increasingly less likely to eat fruit and veg due to perceptions about cost versus value.

The third is that, after a relatively stable few years in pricing (and coincidentally a relatively stable global financial market), the types of food bought are again following socioeconomic lines - i.e. the less well off you are, the less likely you are to invest your wages in fresh food, instead investing in longer term but less healthy produce. This last element is being driven by global rises in food types essential to a healthy lifestyle.

In the next and final part of these semi-regular articles I'm going to look at consumer attitudes. Specifically, what drives people to buy food that they know is bad for them?

 

Burger Business

for the disgusting picture>

NW

Zadie Smith

I'm listening to a guy called Kanda Bongo Man on Spotify right now and he's made me think. How many people from the DRC are likely to read a book review written by a white British guy on the internet? If everyone had access to the internet, a PC/laptop, tablet or phone, would my review of Zadie Smith's NW make it into their daily lives? If not why not?

 

More generally who reads book reviews? What does this charming branch of arts journalism exist for (I am not doing arts journalism FYI)? Are those readers black or white? Are they educated? Europeans, East Asians, Africans? Who is interested in this stuff? Is it relevant and why?

 

I suggest an amazing paradox is at work here. A medium that is both ignorant of human existence yet created for and by humans to interact with, opening up preserves to all sorts of visitors. To me, arts literature is vital. It informs me when I walk through the Ancient City in Rome or watch a Brecht play with friends in Salford. But, returning to my original point, I'm the sort of guy that I imagine ingesting this stuff. What about Kanda Bongo Man?  

 

I'd be fascinated to see the average hour on the internet from a guy working in a souk in Algiers for example. Equally, I'd be curious to see if the 30 year old Sydney businesswoman looks at the pages I think she'll look at when she gets back from her day at work. Guess there's interesting cultural perks for those guys checking your emails at GCHQ after all.

     

Humans, like every other species with a brain, are after all creatures of habit, and there is a natural and easy tendency to go for what we know, as long as that does not cause us emotional or physical pain. I'm still not sure that advances in technology will ultimately broaden many worldviews; instead, they will only give us easier access to the things we love already.

 

And that's why I loved reading NW. I've been a fan of Zadie Smith's style for some time now since reading her first novel White Teeth, and that's mainly down to her, in my eyes, exceptional skill at prying open complex cultural habits and transactions with the delicacy of a pearl fisherman, and documenting what's to be found inside. Information is Smith's stock and trade, and she wields it with a precision that I haven't found in many other writers.

 

It's present in her ear for her fellow Londoners dialects, so ripe that its pungency assails your nostrils, and in her topographical mastery of her city, tugging your sleeve as you navigate a place you (I) have never been to or seen. It's there in her cultural bookmarks; the trick is helping you understand an alien gesture, like buying a tabloid and broadsheet, and then revealing the thought processes deftly, like a street magician plying all of his best tricks before your eyes. 

 

That escape from a culture, a series of habits, is also present in much of Smith's work, and in Natalie/ Keisha Blake she finds the best foil yet to tease out the darkest desires of a historical people. I liked her handling of On Beauty's Howard Belsey - his innate fallibility was revealed with a chastening lack of respect for its subject, and it's easy to feel Smith is closer, although ultimately no less clinical, with her subjects here. 

 

Blake's arc starts in the Eighties in a high-rise in NW London, goes on a brief sojourn to Manchester for her formative years, and returns to the nest for the beginning of her professional career, her marriage and the birth of her children. Throughout a spiritual unrest pervades the post-it note chapters; their brevity and layering of detail upon detail lends a restless, anxious air that Leah's story, Keisha's best friend, does not have. 

 

And as the tower of details becomes ever higher, some inevitably fall off, floating past their antecedents, and a connective loop is established between the actions of a woman apparently rent in two by career, family (her son and daughter, and then her mother, sisters and brothers) and locale. And all of it delivered in a hovering indirect third person that observes its subjects anguishes and desires with a delicacy that saw her compared to Dickens. It's a 'performance' in the theatrical sense, and I think it deserved all the plaudits it received.

 

Suffice to say I was equally taken with Smith's rendition of skinny white girl Leah and the unfortunates Nathan and Felix - although unfortunate in different ways. But this is getting pretty long. The source of my admiration for this book, though, is ever-present in small details; in the bus stop outside Felix's dad's house, in Nathan selling a Tube ticket outside his local station, and in the herky-jerky opening chapters of Leah's encounter with Shar. 

 

There's a sense of being there. Of touching and dealing with things that exist, and an invitation to observe the things described from your own home and background. This book stands up to every perspective, regardless of background or set of interests. It exudes so much confidence that it could only have been written by someone at the peak of their abilities, which is exactly where I believe Zadie Smith can be located right now.

 

Thanks for the book London Fictions

 

Bridesmaids

(A Few Words)

Here's a fact: last year, Universal Studios, responsible for distributing Bridesmaids, had its best ever year, raking in nearly $1.4 billion in revenue.

Here's another 'fact': I've never seen Girls, I despised the whole concept of SatC and I quite fancied New Girl but didn't watch any in the end.

Here's a (rhetorical) question based on the two statements above: am I contributing to the continuing fusion of capitalism and conservative patriarchy?

 

TV and film matters. Maybe not as much as literature, or at a push music. History and technology are continually playing a large part here. But it is influential, it's trendsetting, and it's become a stimulator for conversation between dozens of interlinking social groups.

A small exercise: try to remember the last time you started a conversation with 'Have you seen' or 'Did you see'. Pretty easy isn't it? No surprise then, based on all of the above, that film makes a massive, massive amount of money through its central position in our daily existences. We don't need a number to tell us that's undeniably true.

It's not a small jump to suggest that an industry with that much traction gets a say in shaping what others think of each other. That's also a given - and that's mainly why I felt a bit guilty about Bridesmaids. I loved it - and then realised why. I'd never seen anything else like it.

Watching a film is supposed to be fun, so no one considers the implications when they buy  their ticket for whatever they're watching. And why should they? I don't want someone scrutinising my viewing choices (unless it's on here of course).

But going back to that last question: am  I, alongside a broad percentage of the male population, reinforcing a certain 'oeuvre', thereby eschewing a different set of films entirely, by 'opting out'? The $64,000 dollar question here, however, is of a chicken-egg nature: does audience influence output, or visa versa?

 

Take directors - the executors of 'Hollywood's' creations. A 2013 Neilson report highlighted the more or less even gender split in moviegoers in the US over three years. But the top ten highest grossing films in 2013 were all made by men. In 2012, only Kathryn Bigelow made the financial cut.

 

Whilst I'm not suggesting directors like David O. Russell or Steve McQueen are perpetuating a male capitalist hegemony (first and last outing for that phrase) it is coming from somewhere. Women are watching as many movies as men - so what are the reasons for the dramatic imbalance?

 

It could be something to do with genre. Neilson also notes that the most popular genre of film in 2012 was action/adventure, with 61% of moviegoers seeing at least one within the year. Discounting arthouse, musical and re-releases, the three genres least viewed by moviegoers was romances, kids/family films and romantic comedies with less than 25% people watching in each case. It's not unreasonable to suggest two out of three of these genres appeal to women more than men, although it is mighty difficult to prove.

 

Nonetheless there seems to be a correlative relationship there of sorts. Of course it's ridiculous to suggest women don't enjoy action films or comedies and there's obvious perils when matching men and women to film genres. So here's the part that can't be measured - at least accurately, or with any degree of impartiality: is there a top-down assumption on what men and women find funny?

I don't believe that marketing bods in Universal et al are out to reverse women's suffrage through the form of cinema. That was a joke. But budgets and spending constitute risk by necessity - and there are some huge budgets for films out there. And risk is only really assessed based on two composites. The first is unassailable knowledge - that is, empirical fact. Not even 'it is raining'. That's ultimately subjective, based on language, geography. I mean granular, like 'water is wet'. 

The other is effectively educated guesswork, increasingly done through algorithms, increasingly placed in the hands of the customer. That's obvious and everywhere. And that's where the really knotty question lies. We have almost no empirical truths left, beyond those that are irrelevant due to their mundane nature. Another day of existence invariably means progress of some sort in a particular field on inquiry.

So when people watch a film like Bridesmaids and argue over the reasons for its success, much of it does boil down to the fact it is an apparently honest appraisal of women in the real world, behaving normally. But how did Universal reach the decision that that was all it took for an economically successful film?

Tick a couple of obvious questions off: how many films are there like Bridesmaids? Of that pretty small pot, how many were successful and translated well culturally? How many of the actresses have a big following in media? Who was the director? Do they have cultural traction? Are you any closer to a definitive answer? Speaking objectively, it's a miracle this film actually got made, because none of those questions are definitive in any sense.  

The question is pretty obvious: how do you change a setup that's almost entirely based on perspective? Here's a more provocative question: when your best, most accurate consumer research is completed for you every day by consumers, with the author as such making almost no autonomous decisions based on the above, is the industry really the issue here? In a nutshell: is your audience unconsciously preserving a male-dominated industry through its economic decisions?

 

Of course that's all pretty obvious. So here's my solution: formative years are the most important. We should get as many kids watching women screaming about bleaching private orifices as they can. Want to see more films like Bridesmaids? Get films like Bridesmaids into schools. I'm only being a tiny bit flippant.

 

Thanks to artsclash for that awesome comic pic

 

Fat Chance

 

The first of three articles which looks at the effects of diet and budget on health

 

It seems perverse that phrases designed by the business and political classes to identify with shedding waste - belt-tightening, waste reduction, streamlining - seem in life to achieve exactly the opposite result quite a lot.

An unusually literal example of just that occurred today, when it was reported in the Guardian that half of British men and women are overweight. The British Heart Foundation had predictable palpitations, warning that lack of regulation around advertising of cheap junk food was contributing to the nation's expanding waistline, as well as bigger projects like town planning and public transport infrastructure.

I like both of those ideas a lot - emotionally, they appeal to an ascetic side of me that also enjoys not using any form of transport at all and buying and freezing fresh produce for later consumption. It does, however, rely on a couple of key elements; quality and affordability. If the offer is no good, I will not buy it. However, if I was to be priced out of my usual shop, what choice do I have? I have to buy what is available.

The most recent example of this can be found in a 12 month overview of the ONS's annual average consumer price inflation index for 2013. This report highlights the annual average inflation per item in % terms. The only thing with a higher rate of inflation than food over 2013;is alcohol at 6.2% (interesting fact: more pubs closed in 2013 than 2012, when the inflation rate for alcohol stood at 6%)

The average rate of inflation above price for food and non-alcoholic beverages is 3.8%. That's higher than last year's figure of 3.2%, which was at least lower than 2011's all time high of 5.5%. In real terms, British people are paying more for food out of their salary packets year on year.

How do the British compare like for like with Europe? Poorly, according to the OECD, who suggest that the British pay more than their Scandinavian peers, France, and much of Central Europe as well as countries struggling with sovereign debt such as Spain, Italy and Portugal.

As a continent, Britain averages above Europe's inflation rates by.6%. It would be unreasonable to consider costs without means of spending, and this is where a relationship begins to form. The government's report on the issue reported that median income fell by 12% for low income households from 2002-03 to 2010-11. That picture has not changed since. Furthermore, the median income in every other income group - bar the highest income group level - dropped by between 1% and 7%.

It's important to recognise this fact -whilst people can put on weight quickly, it takes a long time for a country to change its national physique, and the downward pressures on real incomes added to the upward pressures on food and energy, particularly oil, which rocketed to above $100 a barrel during the second Gulf War, have begun to force this to happen. Equally important are attitudes to food and eating, which tend to be generational and change at a glacial pace. More on that in the next post.

If that wasn't enough, American nutritionist Dr Adam Drewnowski has made some interesting links between spending power and obesity, and his analysis of what a hypothetical dollar would buy from the average grocery shop is compelling, if disturbing reading. The picture is similar in the UK. The government's own research suggests that:

"Those on lower incomes tend to buy different food items to:

• those on average or high incomes but food prices for these different shopping baskets have risen at about the same rate"

I'll also go into more detail on what those products are, and some interesting information around what informs those decisions, in my next post.

It's pretty pertinent to look at what's available on the supermarket shelf for the average Brit. The Department For Environment Food and Rural Affairs notes that 25% of Gross Value Added in food and drink manufacturing in 2012 was beverages, including soft drinks.

The biggest group was baked and other 'farinaceous' products - which is shorthand for products with flour, starch or yeast in them, and therefore difficult for the human body to break down. The three smallest groups were grain, fish and crustacean and fruit and vegetable providers - which all provide fibre and vitamins A and C. There's also a preservative element to contend with - baked good produce this naturally through the process whilst fruit, veg and live meat and veg have a shorter shelf life, indicating faster turnover. Again it's not hard to see why people turn to Greggs and not the greengrocer.

Finally, British energy prices must also play a part here. As a recent Oxfam survey shows, Britain suffers some of the most volatile price swings For many items to be eaten, they must be cooked, which results in fuel of some sort. And again, despite much of David Cameron's posse deriding Labour's 'Marxist' strategy of price-capping energy bills to customers, there is some meat on the bones of Ed Milband's argument (that's the only food-related metaphor I'll use, FYI).

The same data from the OECD shows Britain paying a comparatively higher cost in real terms of take-home pay than much of their counterparts, and the overall figure for the OECD Europe area was 1.3% in 2013 versus Britain's figure of 3.4% - whilst that compares favourably to countries like Turkey and Norway, it pales in comparison to France and Germany's figures of .6% and 1.4% respectively, as well as Italy and Spain - again (though these last two have probably benefited from massive central investment from the ECB).

Food is a subject that should engender a more emotional reaction than it does. It's the difference between life and death, and everything in between. Yet all the evidence suggests the means to a healthy, sustainable life are being challenged like never before.

Up next: what makes certain food types so popular? What is the effect of branding when buying food and drink? And what can we do to recycle our food to ease cost pressures on manufacturers?

Sources

OECD: Consumer Prices, Annual Inflation Data

http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=221

Dr Adam Drewnowski: Poverty and Obesity

www.niehs.nih.gov/...n.../supplementary_informationdrewnowski2.pdf

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Food Pocketbook 2013

https://www.gov.uk/...data/.../foodpocketbook-2013report-19sep13.pdf

ONS wage inflation data 2013 

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/april-2013/sty-awe-dec-feb-2013.html

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/2013-provisional-results/stb-ashe-statistical-bulletin-2013.html‎

Pic courtesy of The Guardian

 

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Interesting things that I read today:

1. An article suggesting Danes are some of the most indebted people in the world
    
2. The same article stating Denmark has 'statistically' the happiest population in the world
    
3. An article stating that GDP in the UK had grown by 1.9% in 2013
4. An article showing customer satisfaction with businesses had generally improved in the UK

I also watched another episode of Season One of The Wire.

All of these concern two things: money, and the lack/ surfeit of it, and happiness (or in #BizTalk which is basically awful all you hashtaggers).

Does money equal happiness? Is it that simple? Can you measure happiness? Or rather, does it simply make us behave n different ways that result in more positive outcomes?

One doesn't appear to equal the other. Take Denmark. Danes pay the highest taxes in the world, but only earn the sixth highest salary. Effectively, they're losing something, somewhere. It's obviously possible that they get it back in kind - a kind of BIK - from their government through safe and secure neighbourhoods and borders, excellent housing, a flexible labour market and great health care. But where?

The HPI (or Happy Planet Index) seems a good place to start. That's got some big name fans - Zac Goldsmith, for one, although he seems a bit nuts. This looks at subjective well-being, ecological footprint, and life expectancy. Here, Denmark is ranked first on subjective well-being. Britain is ranked 19th.

It's when you look at GDP that it gets interesting. There's approximately 62 million British people, and they generate $35,866 per capita (or £21,641.70 by today's XE comparison) - just over 75% of what US makes in ratio terms.

Denmark, however, generates $40,163 per capita - or 85% of the profit generated by the US, in ratio terms - for its population of 5.5 million people. So 10% more appears to count for a lot, based on the HPI.

What about that great fear factor: after poverty, people are afraid of death. Denmark has one doctor per 294 of its population - by comparison, the Telegraph laments EC figures that state there's 2.71 docs per 1000 people in the UK. Denmark's figure is 3.40 - less than one better. Is that such a big deal?

Denmark spends approximately 9.8% of its GDP on healthcare - at least according to Wikipedia. The UK spent approximately £170 billion on healthcare in 2011, or 9.3% of its budget. Does .5% make such a big dfference?

What about quality of life? In 2012 the average Dane worked 1546 hours over the course of the year - or, assuming he gets five weeks holiday and weekends off, that's about six and a half hours per day. Wow!

By comparison the average UK worker did 1654 hours in 2012 - using the same figures, that's about seven hours per day. There's basically almost nothing in it - again, the only really big difference really does appear to be money, and how much of it people have.

The other interesting element at play here is how happy customers are with businesses. You might not be surprised to learn the least favourable satisfaction scores this year were generated by energy and utility companies - Ed Miliband has clearly been doing his homework.

By contrast, the only major group to have bounced back from declining scores was... banks and building societies. Weird, right? Even though I can testify from first hand and professional experience that some banks are making strenuous efforts to improve their products and services, that is a big jump in just 12 months. Link that in to the widely reported news that in 2013 the UK's GDP grew by 1.9%, taking it back to pre-recession levels, and there seems to be a pattern developing.

To return to one of the main ideas at the start then - do people make better decisions when they have more breathing room financially, and does this help achieve a snowball effect?

Looking at the opposite side of the coin, there is some scientific evidence that quick access to cash with little attention to creditworthiness tends to lead to a decrease in self control, increasing the chance of default. This can have an effect on mental health and result in depression, which is just one of many symptoms of poverty.

In conclusion:

How people achieve a constant state of happiness in an ever-changing economy is a harder question - and many people might not like the answer that comes to mind.

 

Thanks NME for your picture!