In lieu of writing an incredibly witty entry, I’ve uploaded some photos to Flickr. First up are a few snaps from last year’s trip to Berlin, most of which provide a snapshot of life at the Stasi Museum and the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, better known as the Stasi Prison. My whistlestop tour of European misery continued at Auschwitz, before I jetted off to Beograd in Serbia, which I spent a few hours before heading south to the music festival at Guca for a long weekend of binge-drinking, Macedonian choirs, boa constrictors, entire cows on spits, and red-hot gypsy brass.

Apologies for all the craziness round here the last few days - blogjam was attacked by a nasty hacker while I was gallivanting round the scene of the World’s greatest nuclear disaster, and I only got round to fixing everything most things properly last night. A new! improved! blogjam design will be online sooner rather than later, and meanwhile you can view my pictures from Mr and Mrs Chernobyl over at Flickr.

And me? Bollocks to this, I’m off to Paris, for a bit of Serbian Opera. Ooh-la-la.

Bollocks to this, I’m off to Ukraine.

Why? Well, my reasons are two-fold. First, you need to be in Kiev if you want to go on a day trip to Chernobyl, which is how I’m spending Easter Sunday.

Secondly, have you seen their Prime-minister? Who wouldn’t want to visit a country with Yulia Tymoshenko in charge? I mean… compare and contrast.

Hardly separated at birth, are they? I know who I’d rather be governed by.

If I were to tell you that one of the greatest records ever made came out South Korean psychedelic pop scene in 1973, you’d probably doubt my sanity. And you’d be utterly, utterly wrong.

I don’t know much about Kim Jung Mi. I know she’s backed on this track by fuzz-guitar maestro Shin Jung Hyun and his band The Men, but that’s about it. It’s from an album called Now, and that the track is called The Sun.

All that matters is that it’s like Sweet Jane crossed with Hey Jude crossed with Francois Hardy, and that every second is 24 carat, take-your-breath-away magnificent.

Years ago, when Terry Venables was about to retire as England manager, I offered my services to the F.A., and applied for the job. Rather graciously, they wrote back and turned me down.

More than a decade later, the game is still a mess. They’ve obviously learned nothing. So after the recent Switzerland game, I wrote to the F.A. again.

Dear Brian Barwick,

I went to watch England last night. It was another anxious ninety minutes, deja vu all over again. But I have a theory, and I believe I have the solution.

Collectively, England players have three major problems.

1) They assume they merely have to show up to beat ’smaller’ teams. Quite where this misplaced sense of superiority comes from I’ve no idea, although I suspect it might have something to do with us once having an Empire.

2) Conversely, they suffer from a crippling fear that this might not be the case; that San Marino can make them look stupid (as they once did) or that ‘minnows’ like Croatia might actually be a much better side (which they are).

3) It’s obviously a psychological issue, which makes things worse, because the last thing the average English footballer - David James aside - wants to consider is that there might be a cerebral aspect to the game. It’s all, blood, thunder and God Save The Queen, innit?

So if we assume that we don’t want to return to the desperate days of Glen Hoddle’s empty-headed quackery (the man is quite clearly a maniac) we’ve got to look for a solution that relies on the few aspects of the English footballer’s psyche that might - with a little prodding - become a positive: the fear of losing their place in the side.

Assumed wisdom in soccer circles - if there is such a thing - suggests that the introduction of a new manager spices things up: with the slate wiped clean, the players who’ve been coasting realise they need to prove themselves again, while those previously excluded are given a second chance. It’s all hands to the pumps.

So here’s my solution: employ a whole series of managers, but restrict their involvement with the national side to two games apiece. In the first game of each series, the players will be fighting for their places in the second. In the second, the players will be desperate to impress the new manager they know is coming in for game number three. As an added bonus, the involvement of managers clearly out of their depth (like Steve McClaren, for instance) will be kept to a minimum.

Please let me know if you’d like to discuss my idea further.

Fraser Lewry
(England fan #55355280)

PS. Did you know that Fabio Capello is an anagram of ‘I, Capable Fool’?

And guess what? No reply.

I pay through the teeth and go to every home game. I eat the ridiculously over-priced food. I put up with the queues. I watch the national side under-performing again and again and again. I suffer.

And when I offer to solve the crisis (for free, mind), they ignore me.

It’s no wonder the sport is going to the dogs.

Had a terrific time last night at the member’s room at the Frontline Club, London’s premier watering hole for war correspondents, news cameramen, combat-weary soldiers and Jeremy Paxman. The evening, a food and wine event, was hosted by controversial wine writer Malcolm Gluck, a man whose very appearance, like that of a coal-streaked miner, gives away what he does for a living; the blotchy skin, broken veins and stained teeth marking him out as a serious, serial boozer.

He’s very entertaining, though, introducing the wine that accompanies each course (the food, incidentally, was excellent) with unbridled, loving enthusiasm, using the peculiar vocabulary of the seasoned wine-taster with near-maniacal abandon: one rather lovely red is described as “waxy, like old school desks”, but it’s not as crazy as it sounds - you can actually see what he’s getting at.

We’re asked to provide our own descriptions for each drink, and I attempt to enter the spirit of the occasion (bearing in mind that I can’t generally tell the different between a Chateaunerf de Pape and a carton of Ribena), describing one glass as “like opening a dusty encyclopedia and inhaling the pages” and another as “golden fucking syrup”. Malcolm, rather pleasingly, sees through this straight away, quite rightly mocking my insincerity. There may be something to this wine-tasting malarkey after all.

I was also interviewed by a very nice chap from BBC Radio, alongside a couple of proper food bloggers, Mrs Cook Sister and Mr Spittoon. The latter revealed that he regularly gets sent free food and wine to road-test. I, rather sadly, don’t.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

I went out boxing on Friday night (to watch, not to take part) with Mrs Ladyshambles, Mrs Shoeboobies and Mr Quality Nonsense. And boy, what a fine time we had - there’s really nothing like brutal hand-to-hand combat to ensure that an evening out goes well.

Although I’m an occasional watcher of TV bouts, I wouldn’t generally claim that one man pummeling his fist into the face of another could provide such absolutely compelling entertainment, but it did, and all the cliches that boxing supporters tend to reel out when the sport is under-fire seem to ring true: that it is a noble pursuit, that its participants do enjoy what they do, and that every precaution is taken to ensure the safety of the boxers (ambulances on standby, doctors in the corners, knocked-out fighters expected to remain on the canvas until the medics allow them to rise, etc.). The atmosphere wasn’t nearly as leery as I thought it was going to be, either - the York Hall full of menacing-looking cockney geezers and brassy birds, but everyone was friendly, and there was no aggression outside the ring.

In the main event, Tony Oakey (who enters the ring to the jaunty strains of The Hokey Cokey) knocked out Peter Haymer in the ninth, bringing a sudden end to the shrieking of Haymer’s poor partner, who stood just to my left. All the way through the bout, she screamed: “USE YOUR BOXING, PETE!” “PISS HIM OFF, PETE!” “JAB, PETE!” “C’MON PETE!”

You’d not get me in a boxing ring for any kind of money… and I don’t think it can be much easier standing helpless on the sidelines while a loved one is getting punched either.

Remind me never to marry a lady boxer.

It was the seventh anniversary of this weblog on December 16. No-one noticed, and it’s hardly surprising: a look at the number of posts made in each year since blogjam’s inception reveals a very ugly truth.

2008 (3)
2007 (50)
2006 (33)
2005 (99)
2004 (116)
2003 (158)
2002 (336)
2001 (425)
2000 (22)

If that’s not clear, here’s the decline in graph format.

Or, to put it another way: in 2001 I averaged 1.16 posts per day. Last year, it was down to less than one post a week. It’s a fucking disgrace.

To be honest, I’m surprised anyone still reads this rubbish, given that I obviously put so little effort into it (although I am surprised by the slightly increased post count last year over the previous). I know it’s easy in these new-fangled days of RSS feeds to monitor sites without actually having to visit them, but still… personally, I’d have gone elsewhere a long time ago.

I don’t even follow my own advice. Back in 2004, when New Zealand’s Net Guide magazine ran a feature entitled 47 key tips from the World’s best Bloggers, I was quoted (that’s how much better this site used to be) saying the following:

“Avoid ‘today I did this’ posts, unless what you did was extraordinary, or unless you can turn it into something extraordinary.”

Let’s examine the evidence, shall we? Here are ten things I did in 2007 that I didn’t blog about:

1) An amazing trip to North Korea
2) A fabulous time traveling round China by railway
3) A wonderful trip to Seoul
4) An incredible four days at a gypsy brass festival in Serbia
5) Quitting my rubbish job
6) A fantastic weekend in Berlin
7) Going to Paris on the first Eurostar train out of St. Pancras. Brilliant!
8) Holding a spectacular launch party for my book
9) Being interviewed by the BBC about kitten cuteness. Wow!
10) A brilliant afternoon learning how to bake at Paul.

Conversely, here are ten things I did blog about.

1) A track I listened to on my iPod
2) Another track I listened to on my iPod
3) Food in my larder I wasn’t sure what to do with
4) Accidentally clicking the wrong button while using Facebook
5) An Easyjet advert that looked a bit sexual
6) An e-mail I got from Amazon that contained a typo
7) Some problems I had with the Football Association website
8) Waking up and wandering round my flat
9) A friend starting a blog in Icelandic
10) Wearing a t-shirt

I really don’t know why you bother.

Just in case I forget what a lovely time I’ve had on holiday, I’ve decided to list a few highlights.

1) The rabbit liver and warm ricotta starter at Peasant. Easily the most glorious thing I ate while away.

2) The American Football. The game had everything: records scattered, a great comeback, a kickoff returned for a touchdown, a 65-yard bomb for the wining score, an onside kick at the death, sporting history unfolding before my very eyes…

3) Niagara Falls out-of-season: cheap prices, no queues, hot solo jacuzzi action.

4) Philadelphia Cheesesteak. One sandwich at Pat’s, then across the road to Geno’s for another. The best? I’ll go with the more liberal snack.

5) The ice hockey. I know nothing about the sport, but it’s great entertainment; fast, noisy and violent.

6) Good films: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly: brilliant. What more could any film lover wish for than a movie devoted to a man who has a stroke and can only communicate by blinking his left eye? That’s my kind of flick. No Country for Old Men: Pretty good. The first 70% was great, but then it suddenly stopped making sense. It’s possible I fell asleep for ten minutes and missed some vital plot advances. There Will Be Blood: Good. Yep, Daniel Day-Lewis gives the ‘towering performance’ everyone reports, and is probably a shoe-in for the Oscar, but the film tries a bit too hard to be epic - lots of lingering, brooding close-ups of the actor, flames reflected in his eyes, that kind of thing.

7) Gogol Bordello, New Year’s Eve, Terminal 5. For three hours, it’s like Borat fronting the Pogues. Brilliant.

8) The Soprano’s Tour: finding myself stuffing dollar bills into a stripper’s cleavage at the original Bada-Bing at one o’clock in the afternoon wasn’t something I’d expected from the holiday, but nonetheless, it wasn’t an unwelcome distraction. Also: the onion rings at Holsten’s aren’t all that.

9) The saffron panna cotta with quince, pink peppercorn and quince sorbetto at Babbo. The rest of the meal? I fear Mario may be resting on his laurels a little, so busy opening pizzerias and publishing books that he’s neglected the restaurant that made his name. I mean, the food was good, but it wasn’t great, and you’ve every right to expect great at one of New York’s best restaurants - and judging by the website, the menu doesn’t appear to have changed much in the last couple of years. I thought it a touch on the unnecessarily stuffy side, and there’s also the weird thing of getting Batali’s choice of (rather intrusive) background music: David Bowie, Red Hot Chili Peppers… it could be worse, but either way it didn’t feel right. It’s also one of those weird places where you’re constantly aware of the other diners, unlike, say, the more crushed but somehow more discreet Andrew Edmunds in London. My starter was the lamb’s brain ravioli with lemon and sage - the sage a little overpowering and the lemon undetectable, while the main was rabbit with brussels sprouts, pancetta and carrot vinaigrette, which was good but a little on the small side (two sprouts?).

10) Series four of The Wire. Watched all 12 episodes in one 24 hour period. Genius.

11) The pastrami on rye from Katz’s Deli. Still a classic, but at $15 a pop it ought to be.

12). Getting boozy with my old friend Adrian on the Upper East Side.

And the downside:

1) My helicopter trip being canceled.

2) Gogol Bordello celebrating NYE five minutes early. Idiots. It’s just wrong.

3) The basketball. Tedious. Fire Isaiah.

4) Being humiliated onstage at the Moscow Cats Theatre, dragged up to face the audience, a stick in each hand topped by a spinning bowl, a cap jammed on my head supporting more spinning tupperware. Never trust a Russian clown, especially when you’re sitting in the front row. Still, at least I was wearing a kittenwar t-shirt, so I’ll consider it a valuable marketing exercise.

5) American Airlines from Stansted: never again.