England Get The Bird

Have a look at this picture. This South African pigeon, already recognizing that he would need to put up with a lot of noise at the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town, decided to at least perch somewhere he would not be disturbed. His chosen place at the top of the net of the Algerian goal during their World Cup match against England would appear to have been carefully calculated if it is true that, as suggested by Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph, the canny bird actually changed sides at half time. Certainly, Mr. Pigeon's choice of venue ensured no ruffled feathers from a flying Jabulani. He would have been in more danger in the stands. Bookmakers should take note of the predictive powers of the South African pigeon.

By contrast, the England manager, Fabio Capello celebrating his 64th birthday on Friday, looked to be a man under considerable pressure. Before the match, the media enjoyed referencing the Beatles song "When I'm Sixty Four" inviting readers to suggest appropriate lyrics for the occasion. That moment has now passed. For the sake of Fabio's health, the nation will be holding it's collective breath hoping that another track from Sgt. Pepper will be invoked on Wednesday afternoon in Port Elizabeth. "Getting Better"....

Poor Britannia?

So, how bad are things in the U.K. really? Hot on the heels of the new coalition government's proclamation that things were much worse than expected, comes the inconvenient conclusion of the newly formed Office of Budget Responsibility that, actually, it's er..not THAT bad! Whilst the politicians argue about the details, a surprisingly upbeat set of results from Majestic Wines this week would suggest that there is, at the very least, some cheer left in the economy.

Majestic posted a pre-tax profit of £16m for the year to March 2010, a very impressive increase of 117% over the previous year. Interestingly, sales of fine wine (classified as £20 per bottle and above) rose by the largest measure - over 22% and online sales rose by almost 20%. For a nation barely out of recession, these are amazing statistics.

It's not new, of course, to suggest that the wine and spirit trade is immune to economic factors and perhaps in this case, the steep increase in consumption is directly related to the depth of the downturn. Has Majestic just had much greater nous than their competitors over this period or is this performance telling us that there is surprisingly resilient spending power left in the economy? Or is everyone broke but determined not to let a little financial difficulty get in the way of a respectable Pinot Noir? Above all, in credit crunch Britain, it would be interesting to know, apart from the 20% online transactions, how much of the £200m+ in store sales was accommodated with a little help from a "flexible friend".....

Tangerine Dreams

What is the most unexpected event of the past couple of weeks? The coalition government formed between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats following the UK election, perhaps? Jose Mourinho completing an unprecedented treble with Inter Milan? Sarah Feguson's willingness to accept a few bob for access to her ex-husband's address book? No, I would suggest the biggest surprise of all has been the severe outbreak of tangerine in Glasgow and London. Last week, Dundee United won the Scottish Cup for only the 2nd time in over 100 years. Yesterday, at an unexpectedly steamy Wembley Stadium, Blackpool won promotion to the English Premiership after almost 40 years in exile from the top division.

These are both magnificent achievements but the most extraordinary story is that of Blackpool. He may previously have been regarded as a bit of a clown, but the manager, Ian Holloway, deserved his day in the sun yesterday at Wembley having taken Blackpool from being relegation favourites to winning promotion in a single season. The adjustment for the Seasiders will be truly transformational. This is a club which only recently smashed it's club transfer record with a £500,000 signing and where first team players are responsible for washing their own kits. With their new found riches, it remains to be seen how many of the current patchwork quilt squad of journeymen players will survive to play in the Premiership, but for the moment, they should enjoy their success.

Is this an omen? If you enjoy a flutter, you may consider a wager on the Dutch winning the World Cup.

Black Swan

Attending an in-house conference a couple of months ago, I asked one of my new colleagues from another department where he worked. I'm a "quant" he replied. I was about to offer some comfort and suggest that perhaps he was just having a bad day when I realized he was one of those PHD-wielding gents charged with calculating how much banks could expect to lose when things get a bit rough. Banks may have paid these guys a lot of money in the golden years but, as we all now know,the idea that markets could police themselves effectively proved to be a pretty expensive mistake.

A long-term critic of such risk modelling, Nassim Nicholas Taleb in "The Black Swan" highlighted the vulnerability of these assumptions in the event of high-impact, hard-to-predict and rare events.

Thom Yorke's "Black Swan" was released in 2006 and has nothing to do with the financial crisis that was to come. But the lyric certainly fits the way things turned out...

BA(RMY)

As if the prospect of another ash cloud and 2009 losses to be reported this week in the region of £600m was not enough for BA's management to worry about, the threat of industrial action over the next 20 days looms large. A baptism of fire for the new Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond. What happened to the once proud BA? There is certainly not enough space here....

I was thinking about BA last month when Malcolm McLaren died. McLaren was always more of a showbiz impressario than a serious musical talent but this arrangement of an old French opera known as "The Flower Duet" was a perfect accompaniment to BA's outstanding advertising campaign from 1989. Although you may prefer "Buffalo Gals"....

HANGING AROUND

These really are momentous times. A week in which Nick Clegg was described as a harlot and Adam Boulton on Sky News almost at the point of punching Alastair Campbell's lights out on live TV! In case you missed it, here it is...

John Hartson

It was great to hear that John Hartson has made a full recovery from cancer. John was with Celtic from 2001 to 2006 and made 146 appearances, scoring 88 goals. The one I remember best is this one from 2003 against Liverpool in the EUFA Cup. I was in Hong Kong watching on TV at about 5.30am when John unleashed this rocket. I must have made a racket because Terry, our helper, suddenly appeared. She was certainly surprised to see "sir" up so early and animated. It really was a moment to savour. (With apologies to my Liverpool friends..)