One for Dan

As an almost-graduate of Hull, he'll appreciate this headline:

'Hull Could Be Transformed into a Venice-like waterworld' (when sea levels rise). Mmm, gondolas pushing through a sea of used syringes and emptied rusting cans of Skol Super. Hull, despite an historic core, was once voted Crap Town of Britain No. 1. Dan assures me that it's worse than Wolverhampton. It certainly shares no characteristics with Venice.

Wolves or Hull (this is not a football-related article)

Make sure you watch Channel 4 News tomorrow - noon or evening. Wolverhampton's academic redundancies will feature as part of a piece on whether this fair city has really become the worst city in Britain, taking the crown from Hull on a number of indices.

Me? I'm stunned it's not my beloved Stoke.

we're football crazy, football mad…

Needing a break from a T S Eliot dissertation, I'm following the (very boring) England-West Indies cricket match ball-by-ball here, and every soccer game here. I think Hull and Middlesborough will go down, despite Ferguson's choice of the Manchester United No-Stars and my own desire to see Newcastle drop. Blue-nosed Rangers have won the Scottish Premiership, unfortunately. Oh well, decades of Celtic supremacy was making the world's least competitive league boring. Stoke to sneak a 1-0 victory over Arsenal from a set-piece.

Update: so much for my predictive skills. We're 2-0 down after 16 minutes, thanks to an own-goal and a penalty.

Update: a goal for them and a penalty for us makes it 3-1. Only 60 minutes of this left…

Update: oh dear. 4-1 down at half-time.

Update: Middlesbrough and Newcastle relegated - Stoke flying high (except for today's result). Good season, chaps and chapesses (another one for Deer Friend there - we've been discussing terms for acquaintances)!

Pure Hull

Consolation goal for Hull in the 5th minute of stoppage time - then hit the side-netting in the last 30 seconds - after lots of Hull 'fans' have left. We've made it: survival (and a rather decent pay-off for me from the bookies).

Blackburn survive - damn.

Random meanderings on football, books and bike theft

Like, I assume, the rest of you, I'm listening to Hull v. Stoke City on Radio 5. We're 2-0 up and guaranteed survival, which pleases me mightily, though I'd like Hull to stay up too. I'm particularly happy that the entire world is listening to the match on the World Service. What a great way to encounter the quality, the class, the sheer magic of the English Premier League.

Over at the Hawthorns, West Brom are storming to a win over Wigan too: fantastic. We always beat them, they play attractive football and their fans are brilliant, so I hope they pull off a great escape.

I should be writing the final piece of this month's PGCE essay, but I've wasted the day reading the Guardian - which means ripping out more book reviews, leading to more purchases. There's a brilliant essay by Elaine Showalter on her favourite eight overlooked American female authors - a good corrective to the endless lionisation of cigar-chewing, gun-toting grand old men of American letters.

The only wrinkle on the day was the end of Neal's birthday. He left his bike at Wolverhampton Swimming Pool overnight, and found this morning that some utter wanker has smashed it up, really gone to town on it. If it had been stolen, I could understand the logic, but the sheer mindlessness of deciding to smash up somebody else's bike because it's there completely defeats me. (Obviously, the security cameras are only trained on the car park - cyclists are beneath the attention of all authority). Still if anyone has a housemate with spokes stuck in their shoes, let me know.

It's also a bit annoying because I gave Neal a micro-techno-super-pump and a bicycle bell for his birthday. Perhaps I'll attach the bell to his shoes.

Still - tonight I shall be attending the Star Trek movie. On my own, like a proper Trek fan.