Liverpool's Greek Tragedy

Oh stranger, go tell in Lacedaemon,
That here we lie, obeying their behests.

Hail, King Rafa and his brave 11!

Liverpool's A-Kop-Alis Now

Athens is the largest city and capital of Greece, located in the Attica periphery of central Greece. Named after goddess Athena, Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world with a recorded history of at least 3,000 years.

Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state. Center of the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles and many other prominent philosophers, politicians and writers of the ancient world.

It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization and the birthplace of Democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European Continent.

Athens has been a popular destination for travellers since antiquity. Over the past decade, the infrastructure and social amenities of Athens have been radically improved, in part due to the city's successful bid to stage the 2004 Olympic Games.

Ok. Whatever



On 23 May 2007, Liverpool, deemed to be lacking in quality, guile and overall strength-in-depth of Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Real Madrid, and the technical brilliance of Barcelona, will be travelling to the Olympic Stadium in Athens for the European Champions League Final.

The others look on, green with envy.






To the Rossoneri, in the words of King Leonidas to the Persian King, Xerxes before the battle of Thermopylae,

Mono Labe

('Come and Get Them')

My Adventure in Saving the Tigers

China is proposing to end their 14 year tiger trade ban by legalising the internation trade on tiger products by introducing tiger farms.

WTF?!

Currently, tiger trade is prohibited internationally as well as domestically in many countries, including China. But now, there is a proposal to set-up tiger farms which will provide the supply for the high demand on tiger products.

The logic behind this hare-brained idea is that by having these tiger farms, there will be a decrease in poaching and demand for wild tiger parts. Since it's being farmed, the tiger parts would be much cheaper and not as expensive as illegally hunted ones.

Niamah!

I don't know about you but farming-out tigers as if they were chickens or cattle is bloody freaky. It's just wrong. And the reasoning behind it is a bloody joke.

The demand for tiger parts has DECREASED with the 14 year ban. There are lesser reports of poaching and the population of tigers in China, India and Russia have increased to a certain exent. By lifting the ban, it undermines the work done for the last 20 year. And furthermore, with the introduction of these farms, there is a danger of an increase in the sale of ILLEGAL parts which can be easily mistaken with LEGAL parts.

Logically speaking, to save tigers, we DO NOT sell them. They are too bloody few tigers in the wild to risk re-opening trade of any kind. The worst-case scenario would be having our own Malayan Tigers being shipped out like our other exports to foreign countries.

In summary, irrespective of the logic behind it, keeping tigers in farms for meat is just wrong.

My Adventure to Save Belum-Temengor

The Perak State Government finally saw the light of reason as they announced on 10th May 2007 that the Royal Belum State Park has been officially gazetted. This means that a total of 117,500 hectares has been put aside as a permanent forest reserve with no further logging activities or any of that sort of hanky panky going on.

Looks like the politicans there have to try to find somewhere else to make a fast buck.

The State had been under increased pressure especially after the Belum-Temengor postcard campaign, and it quickly announced that logging in the Temengor Forest Reserve would come to a halt in 2008, late last year.

But still, like the pepatah, "dapat betis, nakkan peha pula" , we tend to further pursue with the state government with additional requests:

1) The extension of the Royal Belum State Park to include the Temengor Forest Reserve.

2) Protection of the natural forest stretch flanking the East-West highway from conversion to plantation.

3) Developing a site conservation management plan for the State Park Together the Royal Belum State Park and Temengor Forest Reserve (here after referred to as Belum-Temengor Complex).

The last time I was there was in 2005, logging was still evident and you could see the detrimental effects of the logging to the area . Let's hope we can preserve whats left our our natural heritage before the shit hits the fan.

My Adventure Getting Hooked on Bleach

This Anime has caught me, hook.. line and sinker.

Suffice to say, I spent last weekend stoning-out on the Anime. This particular series is highly recommended for you Anime freakoids out there.

Being the artsy type bloke, I'm usually into serious fantasy type Animes; Gunslinger Girl, Basilisk, Ghost in a Shell, to name a few, where the animation is much more errr.. artistic. Although, not to be too poyo, I have previously followed the exploits of Goku, Gohan then Gotenks from the Dragonball series, with relish. Oh, and not forgetting that Naruto chap as well.

So, last Friday, my boss (yes, no shite) passed me his avi. format Bleach series, from episodes 1 to 103 after he had endlessly promoted it to me the entire week. He told me if I liked Naruto, then then I should seriously check the series out.

The wife wasn not too pleased about it.... especially when I took the mop and waved it at her while shouting, "Zangetsu!!!" when she yelled at me for going on a 4-hour marathon of the the series... and didn't help her with any of the chores like she asked me to.

Fortunately, the mop didn't unleash my Spirit Power though, which I'm kind of glad as I would foresee that I would be sleeping outside if it did.

60 episodes down. 40 or so to go.

My Adventure of Being Overjoyed

After a week long holiday, frolicking in Cameron Highlands with the Missus, our win was a bloody nice thing to come back to. It was fortunate the hotel carried ESPN but a bit unfortunate for our neighbours who had to adhere to the curses, screams of joy and rendition of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' coming from our room.


A 'Dagger' straight through the heart of Chelsea. 1-1 in aggregate.


Bolo, of all people, hits the target for once. 1-0 to Liverpool on pens.

"I still remember the time when you got me sent-off.

How do you like this you Dutch tosser?"

Easy by our Spanish Matador. 2-0 to Liverpool

Fat Franks' been practising it seems. Chelsea gets one back, 2-1

You didn't really expect HIM to miss, now did you? 3-1 to Liverpool

Wot? Jose put you in during E.T. for the pens?

He shouldn't have bothered. Liverpool lead 3-1 on pens.

Dirk send us into the finals. Yay!

Chelsea buried.

The lads were happy because Rafa promised Fish & Chips on the bus home.

And so Greece beckons in three weeks' time. For those Reds who still haven't ceased their celebrations in Istanbul it's just a short trip across to an adjacent country.

As for the cup only being on loan, here's hoping that it's swiftly brought back home.