by on 28 Mar 2010 9 Comments

World class football players

As you all know, the World Cup is starting in a few weeks in South Africa. I spent a few minutes today identifying some world class players from popular teams and this is what I found out.

Spain

According to me, Spain has the quality to win the World Cup: the goalkeepers, midfielders and strikers are fantastic even though the defense is not as good as the rest. David Villa and Fernando Torres play excellently together but, for me, Andrés Iniesta will be the key player.

  • Iker Casillas
  • Pepe Reina
  • Sergio Ramos
  • Xabi Alonso
  • Cesc Fabregas
  • Xavi
  • Andrés Iniesta
  • David Villa
  • Fernando Torres

Brazil

Brazil has a lot of talented players but not as many as the other top teams. Alves is arguably the best right wingback in the world and, well, Kaká is magic (most of the time.) Most pundits say that Brazil will play in the final because Dunga, the coach, has managed to build a very fluid team using innovative tactics.

  • Dani Alves
  • Kaká

Argentina

A lot of people have already discounted Argentina but I’m not so sure. Mascherano is a formidable defensive midfielder and captain of the team (yes, I know, he gets booked too many times… but he is just being like Roy Keane) who can protect and let Messi, Agüero, Higuaín and Tévez do their usual magical stuff in front.

  • Javier Mascherano
  • Sergio Agüero
  • Gonzalo Higuaín
  • Lionel Messi
  • Carlos Tévez

England

England has crap goalkeepers and will not win the World Cup… But, of course, being Mauritian, I would like England to go as far as possible in the tournament. Maybe England has a slight slight chance of winning if and only if (i) Rooney, who is the best English player this year, stays fit and (ii) Gerrard rediscovers his potency. Interesting how England’s future lies in the hands of two Scousers.

  • John Terry
  • Steven Gerrard
  • Frank Lampard
  • Wayne Rooney

Portugal

Can Ronaldo, who is the best player in the world, win the World Cup by himself? No. But he will try nevertheless.

  • Cristiano Ronaldo

The others…

Patrice Evra (France), Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire), Michael Essien (Ghana) are world class players but, unfortunately, they play in somewhat worse teams than the ones I have mentioned above.

The outsider

Every four years, one small country (in the footballing sense) exceeds all expectations. Who will it be this year? Maybe the United States who played against Brazil at the last Confederation Cup final but who lost by a slight 2-3.

Filed Under: News, Sports
by on 08 Mar 2010 8 Comments

Stupid 24/7

I live in Quatre-Bornes and, this week-end, we were victims of that stupid thing called 24/7.

My daughter, Anya, was still awake at midnight last night because, brace yourself, a concert was still on (at midnight!!!) at the Municipality of Quatre-Bornes and the noise was deafening (even though we were 1-2 km away…) Don’t the organisers know that kids should sleep early on Sundays to be fresh for school the next day?

What’s the purpose of organising a concert until midnight? The only reason I can think of is that the Human Resource Development Council knows that no one gives a s*it about that 24/7 thing and the only way to attract a few people is to have such a concert. But come on guys! On Sunday?!? At midnight?!?

I only hope the millions that are being wasted are going to be recouped one day. But I have my doubts… once more.

Filed Under: Mauritius, News, Politics
by on 02 Mar 2010 7 Comments

On killing book reading

As I suppose you all know by now, the British Council has decided to close its public library in Mauritius. This decision, which, as far as I can tell, is based on economical reasons, is very debatable as this will prevent people who like to read to have access to English books.

I have very fond memories of the British Council library. I was a subscriber when I was a kid then again when I came back to Mauritius in 1998. I remained a subscriber until two years ago when I decided to stop subscribing for two main reasons:

The library, which was originally a real library with real books and a very studious atmosphere, became a médiathèque with Web-enabled PCs, LCD TVs showing English movies, etc. From total silence, the place became noisy… But, more problematic, someone there decided that most books should be kept somewhere hidden and only retrieved when asked for. This made stumbling by accident on a book more or less impossible.

See, I became a Computer Scientist in large part because, at the British Council library, I stumbled by accident on one book when I was a kid. That book was the formidable Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley:

I read that book when I was 14-15 and fell in love. I discovered that very special type of literature called computer programming. From there I read books on algorithms, data structures, computer architecture, etc, all of them obtained at the British Council library. I can’t imagine what my education would have been without them…

A second reason why I stopped subscribing was that I felt that the subscription fee was becoming too high. I think it was around Rs 1000 per year which is waaaaaaay above what a normal Mauritian can pay. For the record, other libraries in Mauritius, and especially Charles Baudelaire library (which is the French alter-ego of the British Council library) charge substantially less per year.

If I were cynical, I would say that this was a deliberate decision by the British Council to have fewer and fewer subscribers until closing down would become the only viable thing to do.

But I prefer not to be cynical (once), this is just a result of very bad judgement.

Filed Under: Education, Mauritius, News, Politics