THE WORLD CUP (2)
It's good to know that my sporting predictions sometimes hold. In my earlier piece on the World Cup (11/6/10), I tipped Holland and Spain, with the latter to win. Not a bad punt all round.
Even though Spain won a number of their games by only 1-0, including both the semi-final and final, they were technically the best side in the tournament, and dominated their matches against both Germany and Holland. Any team that can afford to keep Torres, Fabregas and David Silva on the bench must be pretty good; and they duly delivered. After being the perennial international football underachievers, Spain are now both World and European champions.
We watched both the semi-final and final in a small bar in the village down from the house we were staying at in Spain. On a warm evening, fortified by cold Estrellas beer and the local red plonk, it was easy to get caught up in it. Not surprisingly, the locals went nuts at the end.
So, that's it for four more years, until Rio in 2014. Yet again, pressure will build for Ingerland to do well; yet again, I doubt that they will. After all, Torres & Co will still be around.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 17 July 2010
SPAIN
I have just come back from a 9-day holiday in Spain. The traditional holiday view of the country is either big city break (Barcelona/Madrid) or sand, sea and sun (Costa Brava, Costa del Sol etc). But we were in a house up in the mountains north east of Malaga, about halfway between Motril and Granada.
The southern part of Andalucia is rugged indeed. The coastal strip is very thin, and the mountains - which, in the Sierra Nevada a bit further east, are quite high, 3,000 metres plus - almost fall into the sea. Small rivers have over time cut huge valleys in the limestone rock, so the villages have to cling to the steep hillsides. It's very, very dry, perhaps the driest place I have ever been, and hot, so it's amazing that anything can grow in the dusty, stony soil. One of the things that can is the olive tree; they are everywhere.
Our house was up a steep valley that had three villages in it; bottom, middle and top. The road got progressively twistier and narrower as you went up; after "top" it turned into a gravity defying dirt road through a forest reserve until it reached the house 4km away. An offtake from the local stream for water, solar power for the electricity, olive and fruit trees fed by drip irrigation, a swimming pool with a 30 kilometer view down the valley. And tranquility, the silence broken only by the sound of a noisy cicada. I loved it.
We had one day down on the coast, a day trip to Granada, and one day in the Alpujarra (the slopes of the Sierra Nevada). Otherwise, it was walking in the forest reserve, cooling off in the pool, and reading a lot of books. Driving down to the village to get supplies was a major endeavour. All in all, I haven't been so lazy for decades.
Andalucia is the poorest part of Spain, but it didn't seem to be doing too badly. True, there are only 16 trains a day out of Granada, a city of almost 250,000 people. But the rural roads look in good shape, and there are lots of blue EU signs around, highlighting money from the regional fund (including the reforestation programme going on above our house). The new motorways from Motril up to Granada, and west from Motril to Malaga, are spectacular, with tunnels through the rock and viaducts across the valleys.
All in all, I was favourably impressed. My only regret is that after a lifetime of dithering and dathering, I took the opportunity to definitively decide whether I like olives or not. The answer is; chopped and on a pizza, OK, whole and on their own, no. A pity, since there were an awful lot of them around to be eaten.
Walter Blotscher
I have just come back from a 9-day holiday in Spain. The traditional holiday view of the country is either big city break (Barcelona/Madrid) or sand, sea and sun (Costa Brava, Costa del Sol etc). But we were in a house up in the mountains north east of Malaga, about halfway between Motril and Granada.
The southern part of Andalucia is rugged indeed. The coastal strip is very thin, and the mountains - which, in the Sierra Nevada a bit further east, are quite high, 3,000 metres plus - almost fall into the sea. Small rivers have over time cut huge valleys in the limestone rock, so the villages have to cling to the steep hillsides. It's very, very dry, perhaps the driest place I have ever been, and hot, so it's amazing that anything can grow in the dusty, stony soil. One of the things that can is the olive tree; they are everywhere.
Our house was up a steep valley that had three villages in it; bottom, middle and top. The road got progressively twistier and narrower as you went up; after "top" it turned into a gravity defying dirt road through a forest reserve until it reached the house 4km away. An offtake from the local stream for water, solar power for the electricity, olive and fruit trees fed by drip irrigation, a swimming pool with a 30 kilometer view down the valley. And tranquility, the silence broken only by the sound of a noisy cicada. I loved it.
We had one day down on the coast, a day trip to Granada, and one day in the Alpujarra (the slopes of the Sierra Nevada). Otherwise, it was walking in the forest reserve, cooling off in the pool, and reading a lot of books. Driving down to the village to get supplies was a major endeavour. All in all, I haven't been so lazy for decades.
Andalucia is the poorest part of Spain, but it didn't seem to be doing too badly. True, there are only 16 trains a day out of Granada, a city of almost 250,000 people. But the rural roads look in good shape, and there are lots of blue EU signs around, highlighting money from the regional fund (including the reforestation programme going on above our house). The new motorways from Motril up to Granada, and west from Motril to Malaga, are spectacular, with tunnels through the rock and viaducts across the valleys.
All in all, I was favourably impressed. My only regret is that after a lifetime of dithering and dathering, I took the opportunity to definitively decide whether I like olives or not. The answer is; chopped and on a pizza, OK, whole and on their own, no. A pity, since there were an awful lot of them around to be eaten.
Walter Blotscher
Friday, 16 July 2010
TOUR DE FRANCE
I said in my blog on the Paris-Roubaix classic (11/4/10) that this year's third stage of the Tour de France on 6 July would be one to watch, since many of the favourites would be unfamiliar with the brutal cobblestones they would have to negotiate in the closing stages of a long day in the saddle.
That prediction turned out to be correct. For Frank Schleck, one of Saxo Bank's two captains and winner of the 10-day warm-up Tour de Suisse, the stage was terminal, since he crashed on the key pave section and broke his collarbone in three places. It was also a setback for Lance Armstrong, who punctured on the same section, possibly the first piece of really bad luck that the 39-year old has ever had at the Tour. On the other hand, pre-race favourite Alberto Contador came out of it quite well, coming home in the second group, despite being a small climber and breaking a spoke on his front wheel.
However, the real winner was Frank Schleck's younger brother and co-captain Andy. After a disappointing opening time trial in Rotterdam, where he lost nearly a minute in just under 9km, Saxo Bank's tactical plan for the first week had to work to perfection. It did. Fabian Cancellara took the yellow jersey on the opening day by blasting the prologue in 10 minutes flat. Then this year's dominant cobblestone rider led his teammate at full gas onto the pave sections, Schleck's job being to hang onto his wheel and hope for the best. By the end of the day, Schleck was ahead of all his main rivals with the exception of world champion Cadel Evans. But when Evans spectacularly cracked on the Col de la Madeleine on the second Alpine stage while wearing the yellow jersey, Andy Schleck took over.
The key battle is now between Schleck and Contador, currently 31 seconds behind. They have each beaten the other by ten seconds on uphill stages, so it will all come down to four mountain stages in the Pyrenees this weekend and early next week. Contador is undoubtedly the better time-trialler, so Schleck will need to be further ahead, at least a minute more and probably two, before the 52km time trial on the penultimate stage next Saturday. So those mountain stages could be fireworks.
We also shouldn't rule out good time triallers like Denis Menchov, despite his already being nearly three minutes down (others are further back). This year's Tour has been held under incredibly hot weather, which is brutally debilitating over the course of three weeks; and it only takes one bad day to ruin a rider's chances. Evans lost 8 minutes on stage 9; and Armstrong was forced to concede an eye-popping 12 minutes on the previous stage to Morzine-Avoriaz. The Tour is not over by any means.
Walter Blotscher
I said in my blog on the Paris-Roubaix classic (11/4/10) that this year's third stage of the Tour de France on 6 July would be one to watch, since many of the favourites would be unfamiliar with the brutal cobblestones they would have to negotiate in the closing stages of a long day in the saddle.
That prediction turned out to be correct. For Frank Schleck, one of Saxo Bank's two captains and winner of the 10-day warm-up Tour de Suisse, the stage was terminal, since he crashed on the key pave section and broke his collarbone in three places. It was also a setback for Lance Armstrong, who punctured on the same section, possibly the first piece of really bad luck that the 39-year old has ever had at the Tour. On the other hand, pre-race favourite Alberto Contador came out of it quite well, coming home in the second group, despite being a small climber and breaking a spoke on his front wheel.
However, the real winner was Frank Schleck's younger brother and co-captain Andy. After a disappointing opening time trial in Rotterdam, where he lost nearly a minute in just under 9km, Saxo Bank's tactical plan for the first week had to work to perfection. It did. Fabian Cancellara took the yellow jersey on the opening day by blasting the prologue in 10 minutes flat. Then this year's dominant cobblestone rider led his teammate at full gas onto the pave sections, Schleck's job being to hang onto his wheel and hope for the best. By the end of the day, Schleck was ahead of all his main rivals with the exception of world champion Cadel Evans. But when Evans spectacularly cracked on the Col de la Madeleine on the second Alpine stage while wearing the yellow jersey, Andy Schleck took over.
The key battle is now between Schleck and Contador, currently 31 seconds behind. They have each beaten the other by ten seconds on uphill stages, so it will all come down to four mountain stages in the Pyrenees this weekend and early next week. Contador is undoubtedly the better time-trialler, so Schleck will need to be further ahead, at least a minute more and probably two, before the 52km time trial on the penultimate stage next Saturday. So those mountain stages could be fireworks.
We also shouldn't rule out good time triallers like Denis Menchov, despite his already being nearly three minutes down (others are further back). This year's Tour has been held under incredibly hot weather, which is brutally debilitating over the course of three weeks; and it only takes one bad day to ruin a rider's chances. Evans lost 8 minutes on stage 9; and Armstrong was forced to concede an eye-popping 12 minutes on the previous stage to Morzine-Avoriaz. The Tour is not over by any means.
Walter Blotscher
Monday, 5 July 2010
MY BIRTHDAY
It's my birthday today, so happy birthday, me.
I got a complete toolbox from my children (and we are talking complete here), so it looks like the Smug Builder project will be expanding, come the autumn. Clothes, tickets to the opera and an invitation to a date from my wife. And an ingenious tool from my mother-in-law and the rest of her family that allows you to pull dandelions and their roots out of a lawn (more detail on that another time, but I am salivating already). Plus plenty of sunshine and an exciting stage of the Tour de France. So a good day all round.
We are off to Spain tomorrow for a family holiday. Away from the tourists and away from the internet. So there's a pause in the blogging for a while. Back on the 15th with lots of impressions from Espana. I am looking forward to watching Spain v. Germany in a Spanish bar on Wednesday.
Walter Blotscher
It's my birthday today, so happy birthday, me.
I got a complete toolbox from my children (and we are talking complete here), so it looks like the Smug Builder project will be expanding, come the autumn. Clothes, tickets to the opera and an invitation to a date from my wife. And an ingenious tool from my mother-in-law and the rest of her family that allows you to pull dandelions and their roots out of a lawn (more detail on that another time, but I am salivating already). Plus plenty of sunshine and an exciting stage of the Tour de France. So a good day all round.
We are off to Spain tomorrow for a family holiday. Away from the tourists and away from the internet. So there's a pause in the blogging for a while. Back on the 15th with lots of impressions from Espana. I am looking forward to watching Spain v. Germany in a Spanish bar on Wednesday.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 4 July 2010
PENSIONS (2)
In my blog on pensions (16/6/10) I said that I thought that France's decision to raise its retirement age from 60 to 62 was too little, too late.
It seems that the Greek Government agrees with me. If a bill is approved by Parliament later this month, then the retirement age for all public sector workers, both men and women, will rise to 65 from 2013. That is an increase of 8 years for men and a whopping 13 years for women.
Greece is, admittedly, a special (basket) case. But it gives a very clear demonstration of what needs to be done. The entitlements of the about-to-retire generation are unaffordable in many European countries. Greece will not be the last country to cut them.
Walter Blotscher
In my blog on pensions (16/6/10) I said that I thought that France's decision to raise its retirement age from 60 to 62 was too little, too late.
It seems that the Greek Government agrees with me. If a bill is approved by Parliament later this month, then the retirement age for all public sector workers, both men and women, will rise to 65 from 2013. That is an increase of 8 years for men and a whopping 13 years for women.
Greece is, admittedly, a special (basket) case. But it gives a very clear demonstration of what needs to be done. The entitlements of the about-to-retire generation are unaffordable in many European countries. Greece will not be the last country to cut them.
Walter Blotscher
Friday, 2 July 2010
CORPORATE TAXES
The Australian Government has come to an agreement with the mining companies on the scale of its proposed "super profits" tax. Controversy about the tax was one of the main reasons why the Labour Party dumped its leader Kevin Rudd and replaced him with his deputy, Julia Gillard, who thereby became the country's first woman Prime Minister. So the deal marks a good start to her tenure.
Lost in all of the arguments about rates is a more fundamental point; namely why does the world bother to tax companies' profits at all?
Companies are, in essence, black boxes; money comes in (in the form of sales revenue, new borrowing, equity subscriptions and sales of assets) and money goes out (in the form of wages and salaries, taxes, purchases, interest, dividends, investments and debt repayments). According to the Nobel-prize winning economist Ronald Coase, the main reason they exist is to minimise the transaction costs of these operations. You can, after all, do all of the above things without having to form a company; though it might drown you in administration.
But the other point about all of the above things is that they are already taxed. Wages and salaries (returns to labour) are taxed in the hands of recipients; so too are interest and dividends (returns to capital). If corporate profits were not taxed, then they would just sit there in the company until they were paid out at some later stage in one of the above forms. Why not, therefore, just wait until that later date? At a stroke, you would get rid of what all accountants know is one of the most complex parts of any tax system. Not least because the concept of "profit" is elusive, to say the least, particularly when companies have operations in more than one country. Governments would of course get less tax from companies themselves; but they would get more from the other sources as and when the (now higher) profits were paid out in some form.
One argument for the Australian super-profits tax is that it will be levied on minerals, which can only be used once. But there already exists a system for dealing with that, namely licences and royalties. It works in much the same way as a patent.
There is one downside with the concept of not taxing companies. For it to work, everybody would have to do it, otherwise one country would be undercutting every other. I think that this effect might well be exaggerated, since companies decamping wholesale to another country would face a lot of upheaval (those transaction costs again). Furthermore, to the extent that it is true, then it would give any non-cutting country a big incentive to match the reduction, thereby cancelling out that effect. However, we shall probably never know what would happen if the idea were implemented, since I put the likelihood of countries abolishing corporate profits taxes at about zero. Governments are too wedded to the revenues to dare to change the system. Even if I suggest it.
Walter Blotscher
The Australian Government has come to an agreement with the mining companies on the scale of its proposed "super profits" tax. Controversy about the tax was one of the main reasons why the Labour Party dumped its leader Kevin Rudd and replaced him with his deputy, Julia Gillard, who thereby became the country's first woman Prime Minister. So the deal marks a good start to her tenure.
Lost in all of the arguments about rates is a more fundamental point; namely why does the world bother to tax companies' profits at all?
Companies are, in essence, black boxes; money comes in (in the form of sales revenue, new borrowing, equity subscriptions and sales of assets) and money goes out (in the form of wages and salaries, taxes, purchases, interest, dividends, investments and debt repayments). According to the Nobel-prize winning economist Ronald Coase, the main reason they exist is to minimise the transaction costs of these operations. You can, after all, do all of the above things without having to form a company; though it might drown you in administration.
But the other point about all of the above things is that they are already taxed. Wages and salaries (returns to labour) are taxed in the hands of recipients; so too are interest and dividends (returns to capital). If corporate profits were not taxed, then they would just sit there in the company until they were paid out at some later stage in one of the above forms. Why not, therefore, just wait until that later date? At a stroke, you would get rid of what all accountants know is one of the most complex parts of any tax system. Not least because the concept of "profit" is elusive, to say the least, particularly when companies have operations in more than one country. Governments would of course get less tax from companies themselves; but they would get more from the other sources as and when the (now higher) profits were paid out in some form.
One argument for the Australian super-profits tax is that it will be levied on minerals, which can only be used once. But there already exists a system for dealing with that, namely licences and royalties. It works in much the same way as a patent.
There is one downside with the concept of not taxing companies. For it to work, everybody would have to do it, otherwise one country would be undercutting every other. I think that this effect might well be exaggerated, since companies decamping wholesale to another country would face a lot of upheaval (those transaction costs again). Furthermore, to the extent that it is true, then it would give any non-cutting country a big incentive to match the reduction, thereby cancelling out that effect. However, we shall probably never know what would happen if the idea were implemented, since I put the likelihood of countries abolishing corporate profits taxes at about zero. Governments are too wedded to the revenues to dare to change the system. Even if I suggest it.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 1 July 2010
MOLE WARFARE
I have a love-hate relationship with moles. On the one hand, their monomaniacal tunnelling in search of worms makes them natural aerators of the soil (good). On the other, a reasonably active mole can destroy a well-manicured lawn in the course of one evening (bad).
On balance, the bad outweighs the good, so out they must go. People have a number of ruses for getting rid of them, ranging from putting bacon down the tunnel, to gas, to tin cans with holes in them on poles (they apparently don't like the whistling of the wind). My badminton partner poured petrol down one hole, and let the vapours expand throughout the network under his lawn, before lighting it. But that was not very effective, since moles range quite a long way from their home base, and his mole was probably sitting in the flower bed, laughing his head off. Besides, who wants to have a summer picnic in a garden that looks like the Kuwaiti oil fields post the Iraq invasion?
No, the only sure way to get rid of the pesky critters is traps. You buy a strong-springed trap that looks a bit like a pair of scissors, open it up and put a small piece of metal between the jaws to keep them open. You then find a recently made molehill with a through tunnel, not an end tunnel (think Oxford Circus rather than Cockfosters), dig out the soil, place the trap lengthwise in the hole, and cover it with a bucket to shut out the light. When Mr. Moley comes moseying along the tunnel later that night, he investigates with his snout. That knocks out the bit of metal, and the trap snaps shut, breaking his back instantly. Very effective.
Having decided on your choice of weapon, you now need a plan. When we moved into this house in 2002, a mole terrorised the front lawn, since his base was directly under the house itself. It took me the whole winter to get rid of the wretched thing. But having secured my home defences, I was able to go onto the offensive, gradually clearing the back lawn, the paddock and the area between the house and the wood. The moles are now confined to the wood itself and the area under the fruit trees.
If this all sounds very military, then that is because it is; indeed, it reminds me very much of the First World War. Neither of us can win a decisive victory. Instead, there are titanic struggles for tiny pieces of ground, fought at insanely high cost in terms of lives (well, at least for the Mole Army). There are night attacks, bomb craters, flooded trenches, churned over ground. There is even a salient (see Ypres, 14/3/10), namely the compost heap that sticks out from the fruit trees towards the back lawn. As at Ypres, this has seen some of the fiercest fighting, since the moles apparently like to breed underneath it. I am tempted to adopt General Plumer's plan for straightening the salient, which involved blowing up the Messines Ridge; substitute "compost heap" for "ridge" and "carting off to the dump" for "blowing up". That would have the added advantage of sucking in any baby mole reserves, and allowing a big push towards the sea. But I have to sort out the logistics before I try such an offensive (i.e. borrow a trailer).
Perhaps because of the snow and the heavy rain, this year's campaigning season has been relatively short; all quiet on the south eastern front. In a surprise ambush in April, I caught a mole coming up through the paddock into the salient. 1-0 to me. Then nothing. Until last week. From his command post under the compost heap, the new commander launched a series of raids in all directions. Turning up my buckets in the morning, I would find the traps sprung and the bucket completely stuffed with soil, but no dead mole; a sort of "fuck you" message. This was beginning to get on my nerves; the orchard was looking more and more like the Somme. So I had a tactical re-think. I gave up some ground near the compost heap, swept round to his rear, and laid a couple of traps in well-used tunnels leading to the wood. Echoes of Cannae, perhaps? Whatever; yesterday, I got him. A worthy adversary; but ultimately doomed.
So, I am managing to keep the moles under control. My only worry is the possible intervention of human rights activists. Because in this war, I definitely do not take prisoners.
Walter Blotscher
I have a love-hate relationship with moles. On the one hand, their monomaniacal tunnelling in search of worms makes them natural aerators of the soil (good). On the other, a reasonably active mole can destroy a well-manicured lawn in the course of one evening (bad).
On balance, the bad outweighs the good, so out they must go. People have a number of ruses for getting rid of them, ranging from putting bacon down the tunnel, to gas, to tin cans with holes in them on poles (they apparently don't like the whistling of the wind). My badminton partner poured petrol down one hole, and let the vapours expand throughout the network under his lawn, before lighting it. But that was not very effective, since moles range quite a long way from their home base, and his mole was probably sitting in the flower bed, laughing his head off. Besides, who wants to have a summer picnic in a garden that looks like the Kuwaiti oil fields post the Iraq invasion?
No, the only sure way to get rid of the pesky critters is traps. You buy a strong-springed trap that looks a bit like a pair of scissors, open it up and put a small piece of metal between the jaws to keep them open. You then find a recently made molehill with a through tunnel, not an end tunnel (think Oxford Circus rather than Cockfosters), dig out the soil, place the trap lengthwise in the hole, and cover it with a bucket to shut out the light. When Mr. Moley comes moseying along the tunnel later that night, he investigates with his snout. That knocks out the bit of metal, and the trap snaps shut, breaking his back instantly. Very effective.
Having decided on your choice of weapon, you now need a plan. When we moved into this house in 2002, a mole terrorised the front lawn, since his base was directly under the house itself. It took me the whole winter to get rid of the wretched thing. But having secured my home defences, I was able to go onto the offensive, gradually clearing the back lawn, the paddock and the area between the house and the wood. The moles are now confined to the wood itself and the area under the fruit trees.
If this all sounds very military, then that is because it is; indeed, it reminds me very much of the First World War. Neither of us can win a decisive victory. Instead, there are titanic struggles for tiny pieces of ground, fought at insanely high cost in terms of lives (well, at least for the Mole Army). There are night attacks, bomb craters, flooded trenches, churned over ground. There is even a salient (see Ypres, 14/3/10), namely the compost heap that sticks out from the fruit trees towards the back lawn. As at Ypres, this has seen some of the fiercest fighting, since the moles apparently like to breed underneath it. I am tempted to adopt General Plumer's plan for straightening the salient, which involved blowing up the Messines Ridge; substitute "compost heap" for "ridge" and "carting off to the dump" for "blowing up". That would have the added advantage of sucking in any baby mole reserves, and allowing a big push towards the sea. But I have to sort out the logistics before I try such an offensive (i.e. borrow a trailer).
Perhaps because of the snow and the heavy rain, this year's campaigning season has been relatively short; all quiet on the south eastern front. In a surprise ambush in April, I caught a mole coming up through the paddock into the salient. 1-0 to me. Then nothing. Until last week. From his command post under the compost heap, the new commander launched a series of raids in all directions. Turning up my buckets in the morning, I would find the traps sprung and the bucket completely stuffed with soil, but no dead mole; a sort of "fuck you" message. This was beginning to get on my nerves; the orchard was looking more and more like the Somme. So I had a tactical re-think. I gave up some ground near the compost heap, swept round to his rear, and laid a couple of traps in well-used tunnels leading to the wood. Echoes of Cannae, perhaps? Whatever; yesterday, I got him. A worthy adversary; but ultimately doomed.
So, I am managing to keep the moles under control. My only worry is the possible intervention of human rights activists. Because in this war, I definitely do not take prisoners.
Walter Blotscher
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