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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
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Daily Blah for... Sunday, June 02, 2002
Beckham's Boys Stick to the Script
I know I'm breaking my own no-posting-on-Sunday rule, but sometimes you just have to vent. Those are the times I created Daily Blah for. And this is one of them. I'm mad about England's performance in its World Cup opener, where my country (right and wrong) threw away an early lead to draw 1-1. This wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that Sweden was probably our easiest opponents. We face Argentina and Nigeria next, God help us. Mostly I'm frustrated by the way England's World Cups always seem to go according to a script. The ending must always arrive in a heartbreakingly arbitrary manner (penalties in 1990 and 1998; the hand of God in 1986, and in 1982, the stupidity of having a second round consisting of leagues: we exited without losing a match). We must always face one of our betes noir, Argentina and Germany. And the opening match must always be a profound disappointment. I still remember the Sun's opinion page after we drew with Ireland 1-1 in the opening match of Italia 90: "Shame fills the heart of every right-thinking Englishman. How could our lads play like that? How could they let us down so badly?" It was funny not only in the face of the Sun's usual hypocritical turnaround four weeks later when we got through to the semifinals ("they couldn't play, sneered the critics ...") but because they could have written it before the match and gone home for an early night. Our lads always let us down at the start. It's almost like we England fans are willing it on ourselves. And, via the incredible pressure the British media puts on the team, perhaps we are. (For the Sun's reaction this time, click here.
Everything about the match seemed to follow previous scripts. England starts strong and score early from a David Beckham set-piece. They slow down towards half-time, sit on the lead and put eight or nine men behind the ball. They start making silly defensive errors, the kind you can't imagine happening if there were only four guys sitting back in the penalty area. One of these errors leads to a goal. Suddenly England are all over the place. There is no England, in fact. The team has gone, replaced by eleven terrified individuals. They look as if they've been plunked in Pamplona right before the charging of the bulls. Only David Seaman, that matador of a goalkeeper, keeps his cool and blocks a seemingly endless stream of strikers who have been given a free pass through the defense. His saves would be entertaining if it wasn't all so painful. It takes the team half an hour to regain its composure and cohesion, but the only shots they can muster are way off target.
I don't know why I bother watching sometimes. The minutes tick by agonizingly, and somehow it doesn't seem to make a difference which lucky England jersey I'm wearing. Besides, the script always says England squeaks through the opening group after pulling itself together in the closing match. It's the next round we'll go down in, or the one after that. The God of football evidently intends my team to suffer in the most drawn-out way possible.
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