Reviewing Eurovision 2016

It may be a little late, but I’m sure you’re dying to know what I thought of this year’s Eurovision.

Although a couple of weeks have now passed since the Eurovision Grand Final, I figured it’s still worthy of a few notes and opinions since, as always, it managed to provoke a few interesting reactions (and people are still asking me about it).

The Winner

The winner was always likely to cause controversy this year. My personal favourite to win was Bulgaria, but it was always a long-shot that Poli Genova would take the trophy home. The early favourite, France, was never likely to do well in the televote. I also thought Sweden was over-rated.

The other favourites were Russia, Ukraine and Australia. Any of those three would have been controversial winners one way or another. Australia originally were meant to be a one-off entry for 2015, so many in Europe would have complained had Australia won. Russia will always be a controversial winner, and the nature of Ukraine’s song meant it would always to accused of being politically motivated, regardless of any truth.

Of the three, I thought the only bad winner would be Russia. Sergei performed his song very well, and the staging was very, very good, but the song itself was about eight years past its time. It would have been a victory for style over substance, which would have been a shame when up against a number of songs of good substance.

In contrast, Australia and Ukraine were great songs with simple staging. I probably would have preferred Australia to win, but Ukraine was a worthy winner. The song may not be uplifting, or a natual chart hit, but it struck a chord with people across Europe, and that cuts much deeper than a bunch of slick stage tricks.

I hope this results means more countries do what Australia and Ukraine did this year and pick a strong song and give it simple staging that keeps the focus on that – the song – in what is, after all, a song contest.

Eastern Bias

There’s a familiar and sadly predictable line, often spouted by the UK media, that Eurovision has an eastern bias and that western countries do badly at Eurovision because of that.

Let’s be clear. It’s nonsense. In the ten years before this year, Sweden won twice, with Norway, Finland and Denmark winning once. Germany and Austria won once too. The other winners in that time were Serbia, Russia and Azerbaijan. That makes it seven wins for countries in western or northern Europe, and three for countries outside of that. If anything, there’s a Scandinavian bias, and with Sweden winning twice, perhaps I could petition that it’s really just a bias towards decent music?

Of course, that doesn’t really fit with the fortunes of the UK and Ireland, who between them have an abysmal record. Ireland finished in the top ten twice, failing to qualify five times. The UK finished in the top ten once, finished bottom of the final twice, and all because of that pesky eastern bias.

The other accusation is that the rest of Europe don’t like us. Well, they don’t care much for Russia either. Russia’s record in those ten years? One win. Oh, and three second places, two third places and a fifth place.

Maybe we just send junk to Eurovision? Let’s face it, that’s the real story here. Eurovision winners include Loreen, Lena, Emmelie de Forest, Alexander Rybak, Mans Zelmerlow and Conchita Wurst (yes, a man in drag, I know – but a man in drag with an incredible voice).

Who have the UK and Ireland sent in that time?

  • Daz Sampson, cavorting with teenage schoolkids
  • Scooch, with a Ryanairesque entry, but less pleasant
  • Josh Dubovie, who, it was universally agreed, didn’t sound as good as he thought
  • Blue, out of music retirement
  • Engelbert Humperdinck, out of a retirement home
  • Bonnie Tyler, presumably from the same one
  • Ryan Dolan, who didn’t survive a terrible perfomance in the jury final
  • Jedward, nearly scraping the bottom of the barrel,
  • Dustin the Turkey, which absolutely was the bottom of the barrel

Aside from Jade Ewen in 2009, there’s nothing memorable for anything other than glorious failure. There’s nothing that should have done really well, let alone win. Out of 20 entries, barely anything that registers better than mere indifference.

So what of this year’s entries? Nicky Byrne didn’t qualify from his semi final, and despite Graham Norton’s protestations, it was thoroughly deserved. Nicky is a good performer, but firstly, he’s not current, and the song’s chorus was very weak. The UK’s entry wasn’t terrible, but was let down by some terribly weak verses. The chorus may have been passable, but overall, the song had no realy presence.

Joe & Jake and Nicky Byrne may have been fine on The Voice, or XFactor, but it’s not good enough at Eurovision any more. You need confident performers, stage presence and a solid song. If you miss any of those, you won’t win. Other countries have the same issue – Germany suffer from picking weak performers and Spain often suffer from weak staging.

If the UK and Ireland want to do well at Eurovision, they need to invest more into the contest. We don’t need to go all-in Melodifestivalen style, but we do need to put more focus on good songs. We often look for the full package all at once, but we’d perhaps be better to commission song-writers to pen great songs, and then find a performer who can really pull it off – and that performer really needs to be someone confident on stage, not just an act that looks like it’s hired the stage for a three-minute impromptu garage session.

And Ireland, if you want to do better, ditch the Late Late Show and Louis Walsh. The UK and Ireland produce some fantastic music. The acts we send to Eurovision don’t reflect that.

Anyway, enough of that.

A Few Other Thoughts

The entrances worked very well, once it got going. I found the country introductions fairly tedious last year, with each country just waving their own flag. It was far more interesting this year with the catwalkers. My own gripe is that it wasn’t really introduced, so it was only after the first couple of counries had entered that you realised what was going on.

My personal favourite, Poli Genova (Bulgaria), was amazing. As was Dami Im (Australia), and Zoe (Austria). Poli and Zoe also worked the camera very well when Justin Timberlake was on screen.

Cyprus had some fairly wild strobing, but Georgia’s were something else. I have never experienced strobe lighting like that. When they called it “prolonged and extreme”, that wasn’t a lie.

Francesca Michielin (Italy) was probably disappointed with sixteenth, but she was a bit flat, which is a shame because it was a really beautiful song. Hovi Star (Israel), who went right after her, sang really well but ended up overshadowed by Bulgaria and Sweden, who went after him.

Germany finished last, again. I really like Jamie-Lee. She was quirky, and admittedly definitely an acquired taste. Unfortunately, she was just too weak. All the above criticisms of the UK and Ireland apply to Germany too.

I thought Spain deserved better. A fun song, sadly let down by mediocre staging.

Armenians have good genes, and they clearly want us to know that.

Petra Mede was incredible, as always, and her performance with Mans in the interval act was hilarious. But how did the man manage to climb on top of the hamster wheel?!

I loved the new voting system. However, it seemed to take everyone (Graham Norton aside) a while to realise Ukraine had won. It created a strange moment of suspense when there wasn’t really meant to be any.

This year’s production was phenomenal. The whole Eurovision team did an amazing job. Ukraine will have its work cut out next year, as Sweden always put everything into Eurovision, but with the contest away from northern, western and central Europe for the first time in six years, it may provide a very different experience to what we’ve seen in recent years – and that could be a good thing.

Eurovision 2016 Preview

There’s something I get excited about every year that everyone pretends not to care about. Secretly they love it.

Eurovision is here? Wondering what to expect? Look no further.

Northern Europe

Two of the Northern European countries are already through to the final: the United Kingdom, as one of the Big Five, and Sweden, last year’s winners and this year’s hosts. Sweden are one of the favourites to win; the UK will be looking for somewhere close to the top ten. I’ve given up guessing how British entries will do at Eurovision, but there’s been less negative press around Britain’s entry this year.

Iceland are represented by Greta Salóme, who was at Eurovision in 2012 when Iceland finished twentieth in the final in Baku. I’m not convinced.

Norway are represented by Agnete Johnsen, five years after she finished second in Norway’s qualifying competition Melodi Grand Prix as part of the BlackSheeps. I love it, but it has an unusual transition from verse to chorus that might be too much for people to really love from on listen.

Nicky Byrne represents Ireland, but that’s as good as it gets for them. No one in Europe will care for his past credentials, and the song is weak. I don’t see it making the final, so if you want to catch it, make sure you see the second semi-final.

Of the Baltic States, Latvia are the strongest. They open the second semi-final. The song is probably too much a grower to win, but may do very well. It’s written by Aminata, who finished sixth for Latvia last year – their best finish since 2005.

Watch out for: Latvia, Sweden
Give it a miss: Estonia, Denmark

Western Europe

Two Western European countries are already in the final by virtue of being in the Big Five – France and Germany. Germany has a chequered history in Eurovision, and France’s history is more on the side of glorious failure – sometimes justified, and sometimes simply unappreciated by the rest of Europe.

Germany didn’t score any points in last year’s final. Their entry this year is from the winner of their version of The Voice. I quite like it, but it’s not going down well at all with others, so it’s likely going to finish bottom of the Top Five this year.

France, by contrast, have brought an entry that’s garnered a lot of attention. It opens in French, but the chorus is in French. It’s an upbeat song, and will do much better than some of their moodier entries from recent years, or the car crash of Twin Twin in 2014 (which had a great studio track, but was disastrous on stage, turning into the worst din I have had the misfortune to hear). Some think it will win. I think there’s better, but the outer reaches of the top five might not be too far away.

Austria also failed to score last year – unfortunate given they hosted the event. I really like their entry this year, probably because it’s a half-decent, upbeat pop song, in French, with a violin in the background. It ticks a lot of pleasant boxes. Unfortunately, past experience tells me Europe will be unimpressed and Zoë won’t be asked to turn up to the final on Saturday.

Watch out for: Belgium
Give it a miss: Switzerland

Southern Europe

This is a large section. Two more countries go direct to the final as members of the Big Five: Italy and Spain. Both are tipped to do well this year. Personally, I think Spain will ultimately struggle with a song that whilst pleasant, isn’t particularly memorable, whereas Italy should be comfortably around the top ten with a contemporary number that mixes Italian (which is always worth more points, as opposed to French which I always think is a penalty) with English. Since Italy returned to Eurovision in 2011 their record has been very good, and they should be confident of beating most of the Big Five on Saturday.

Greece have always qualified for the final since the semi-finals were introduced, despite a few questionable acts. Aphrodisiac (2012) was cute, but hardly tuneful, yet finished fourth in its semi-final. Freaky Fortune and RiskyKidd (2014) finished seventh in their semi-final with a terrible song only made slightly better by a trampoline the act bounced on during the song, giving you some vain hope they might fall off, break their neck and save you from the rest of the song. If there is any justice, this year will finally be the year they fail to qualify.

Perhaps reflecting the vast expanse of land and culture between these fair isles and the far reaches of Southern Europe, there’s a lot of entries here I wouldn’t give much light of day. Montenegro are usually the best example of this, and this year is no different. There’s also Albania, F.Y.R. Macedonia and others who you’ll not worry if you hear them only once.

The standout entry from this section, however, is Malta, which closes the first semi-final and is a sure-fire qualifier for Saturday. With Molly Pettersson-Hammer on backing vocals, it’ll be interesting to see how high this song can go in the final.

Watch out for: Italy, Malta
Give it a miss: Greece, Montenegro

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is a fairly small bunch of countries and a bit of an eclectic mix.

Ukraine return to Eurovision this year having pulled out in 2015 owing to the unrest in the east of the country which Vladimir Putin most definitely has nothing to do with. The song is called “1944” and is about Stalin’s treatments of Crimean Tatars. How it passes Eurovision’s political test, I’m not sure, but it’s a good song with a message that if understood, will certainly resonate with many.

Bulgaria were well-fancied in the run-up to Eurovision this year, but seem to have dramatically underwhelmed in rehearsals. That’s a shame because on track recording only, it’s one of the best songs of the year. It’s reminds me a little of Hungary’s Kati Wolf in 2011. A shame.

Watch out for: Ukraine
Give it a miss: Belarus

Greater Europe

And so we come to the final Eurovision group: the countries which aren’t really in Europe! This includes Cyprus, which whilst in the EU and using the Euro, is officially (according the United Nations) in Western Asia. Which, conveniently for me, helps reduce the size of Southern Europe.

Russia appears in this group, and they are currently the favourites to win. Australia are fourth favourites, despite Graham Norton’s disapproval. Armenia has also had a lot of hype, including a little coverage from some leaked footage of the jury semi final. But, to be honest, none of this group really light my fire*.

Watch out for: Russia, Israel
Give it a miss: Georgia

*Congratulations if you understood that reference.

Thoughts on the Scottish Election

With the Scottish elections imminent, there are a few things I’ve been asked about that I may as well get off my chest.

I’ve been asked my thoughts on the Scottish election a few times this week, so I’ve decided to pen a few of them. It may make your blood boil. Some of it is a little tongue in cheek, but there’s some hard truth in it too.

Taxation

The SNP tell us putting a penny on income tax will hurt the poorest in society more than anyone. This is a lie.

The poorest in Scotland don’t pay income tax. If you earn less than £11,000 this tax year, you’ll pay no income tax, whatever the rate. For those who do pay, income tax is progressive. It’s 1% of everything above the £11,000 figure. If you earn £12,000, you’ll pay an extra £10 in tax. If you earn £22,000, you’ll pay an extra £110 in tax. The poorest don’t pay more, than those who earn more will pay more than those who earn less.

The real reason the SNP are against raising tax is because people don’t like it. The Scottish Conservatives are honest about that, but the SNP aren’t. That’s the real reason they oppose a raise.

By all means, oppose a raise in income tax because you believe in low taxation, but don’t dress it up as a way of protecting the poorest.

Oh, and a quick note on the 50p tax rate. On page eight of the SNP’s 2015 manifesto, they support a 50p tax rate. This year, given the opportunity to implement it, they chose not to promise it, and attacked Labour for supporting it. Again, by all means oppose it for other reasons, but they’ve changed their tune for sheer political expedience and covered it up in hogwash.

Independence

One of the problems with the last session was that half of it was taken up by the independence referendum. This meant issues like missed A&E targets, falling literacy and numeracy rates, and chaos at the heart of the new, centralised Police Scotland got very little legislative attention.

Repeating that referendum will exacerbate the situation. We need to focus on legislating if we want to find a solution to those problems. You can’t just blame everything on “Wastemonster”.

I made my views on independence clear at the time. The referendum was run on a one-vote, matter-settled basis. The “Yes” side had two and a half years to convince people of their case. They didn’t. Time to move on.

Aha! But what if “the people”, or “public opinion”, suggest we want independence after all? Well, I have four points to make:

  1. They might change their mind again! Imagine that!
  2. Referendums are not like elections. They are designed to settle matters not forever, but for a generation. Check out the 1975 referendum on membership of the EEC. Did it mean everyone embraced Europe? Far from it. But the UK waited 41 years for another referendum nevertheless.
  3. You don’t run a referendum over and over again until you get the “right” answer. Remember Ireland and the Lisbon Treaty? That’s not the way to do it.
  4. It’s not just about Scotland. Independence would affect the rest of the UK and Europe too. It creates uncertainty. Uncertainty affects investment, and that affects growth. You have to draw a line. The line was drawn before the referendum. You can’t redraw it now.

So, despite my support for independence in 2014, I completely agree with Ruth Davidson. If the Prime Minister is asked to sanction another referendum, he should invite the proposer to take a hike and use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to make a real difference to Scotland.

Trident

Trident shouldn’t really be an issue in the Scottish election, as it’s a reserved issue. However, it doesn’t stop people making it an issue.

The usual argument is that replacing Trident would stop us investing in public services, and we’d all be jolly well better off (financially) without it. Let’s look at the maths, shall we?

Replacing Trident would, over 30 years, cost £167 billion under current estimates. Scotland’s share of that would be about 8%. Spread over 30 years, that’s just under £450 million a year.

Scotland’s current budget deficit is £15 billion per year, so it would account for, at current rates, about 4% of the current budget deficit.

Scrapping Trident wouldn’t make Scotland substantially richer. By all means, scrap Trident because you think it’s repugnant, but don’t do it because it will turn Scotland into a rich paradise. It won’t.

“Free” education

Education is not free. Someone has to pay for it. There are three ways of doing it:

  1. General taxation – everyone pays.
  2. Student fees – the student pays everything.
  3. Hybrid approach – university is funded partially through general taxation and partially through fees paid by the student (either upfront or after graduation).

In reality, the second approach is too expensive to be an option. So, it’s either general taxation or a hybrid approach. The SNP, Labour and the Liberal Democrats support funding higher education purely through general taxation. The Scottish Conservatives, meanwhile, support the hybrid option.

So, why do the other parties not support that option? That’s because they support “free” education.

Newsflash! It’s not free. You’re just asking all taxpayers to pay for it. Even if they didn’t go to university.

There is another objection. It’s the poor card again. Fees will put off poor students from going to university. Don’t believe it.

Upfront fees (where you need to pay before you go) will put off poor students from going to university, because they will struggle to find the money. However, that’s not what’s proposed, and that’s not how the system works in England either. Instead, the proposal (and the English system too) works by asking graduates to pay back their fees once they have their degree and are earning over a certain threshold.

If you get a degree and can’t get a job, or don’t earn much, you don’t pay anything back until you do. Once you do, you pay back a certain percentage above the threshold. It’s progressive. (Have you noticed how the SNP don’t like progressive taxation yet? Don’t worry, there’s one more coming.)

There is one area of concern, however, and that’s the cost of the loan to the student. I was fortunate to study between 2005-2008, and the interest rate on my loan is very fair – it’s broadly in line with inflation. Under current English student terms, the interest rate is RPI + 3%. That’s a raw deal for students (but loans are cancelled after 30 years). So, the terms are important, but the principal is not a bad one. And free education is a myth from that far away oil-rich egalitarian independent utopia (often called “Norway”).

Council Tax

OK, one final subject: council tax. This is a putrid tax – everyone is agreed on that. The SNP promised to abolish it in 2007. A committee has spent years reviewing it, with a view to abolishing or reforming it. And, come the end of it, what have the SNP promised to do with the putrid, hated tax they promised to abolish?

They’ll ask people in high-band houses to pay a bit more. Great, thanks for wasting our time. They won’t even conduct a revaluation of house prices and bands – data that’s 25 years old.

But living in a high-band house doesn’t mean you earn more. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hated. If you live in a small flat in a nice area, you might be in Band E, whereas in a house more than twice the size in a struggling area, you’ll be in Band B. Regardless of ability to pay. That’s regressive, not progressive. Shambolic. They had the opportunity to reform Council Tax, but haven’t got the political will to do it. Sad.

SNP Conservatism

The SNP are being very conservative in this election, aren’t they? None more so than in their election billboards:

Don’t just hope for a better Scotland, vote for one.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Trouble is, it sounds very similar to Margaret Thatcher in 1979:

Don’t just hope for a better life. Vote for one.

Ah, Maggie. Still inspiring the SNP, 37 years on. OK, I know. Maggie doesn’t have a monopoly on inspiring (and hollow) slogans. But there is one important difference.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher was the challenger. She was the Leader of the Opposition (an actual position, unlike the fake one Ruth Davidson is trying to “win”) at a time when the Labour Government was on its knees after the Winter of Discontent. The Conservative Party ran arguably the most famous election slogan of all time in that election: “Labour isn’t working”. And it wasn’t – for anyone.

Contrast that to now, Nicola Sturgeon is already the First Minister. She has been for about eighteen months. She has served as Deputy First Minister from 2007 to 2014. She is the incumbent.

It’s great to tell people they can vote for a better future, but when you’ve been in power so long, they shouldn’t have to. They should see you’re already doing it.

Handbags

It’s amazing how parties can feign disagreement when their policies are near identical. Take healthcare, for example. The SNP have taken Labour to take because Labour will only increase health spending “in real terms” (i.e. above inflation – a good thing for the NHS budget, as it will increase).

When you look at the SNP manifesto, they promise to increase the NHS budget by £500 million. That’s a real terms increase, by another name. Labour don’t put a figure on their budget increase for health, but the policies are basically the same.

In the first STV debate, Willie Rennie had the opportunity to ask Kezia Dugdale anything he wanted. So, what did he decide to attack her on? Putting a penny on income tax to fund education. Fair game, right?

Well it would be, except that’s the Lib Dems’ policy too. And that, for me, sums up the Lib Dem campaign. Generally anonymous, and when given a chance, utterly hopeless.

Conclusion

So, there are my thoughts. The SNP will win a comfortable majority on Thursday. I’m not sure who will finish second, but it’s looking more like the Conservatives than Labour right now. The Greens will easily beat the Lib Dems to fourth.

And if you want to know which Regional list I’m watching out for… Highlands and Islands. Plenty of decent things to watch out for there. How strong are the SNP in Orkney and Shetland? How strong are the Lib Dems? What about UKIP? Will Jean Urquhart help RISE’s fortunes, and what about UKIP? A juicy region indeed.

Thinking about the Scottish elections?

How should you approach the Scottish elections? How do you find out what each party stands for? And how do Christians engage with the Scottish Parliament, politicians, and politics in general?

In case you’ve missed it, the next elections for the Scottish Parliament are on Thursday 5 May – less than a week away.

Whilst enthusiasm for these elections is noticeably less than it was for the independence referendum 18 months ago, they are important elections, and with the new powers coming to the Scottish Parliament in the next session, the next Scottish Government will have the power and responsibility to make real choices about spending priorities and raising taxes.

So, even if it seems like the result of the election is already settled, it’s still important to engage. The voting system used in Holyrood means there are lots of seats on the regional lists which are most definitely up for grabs, even if many of the constituencies won’t end up being very close.

The make-up of the opposition will also be important in determining how well the government are held to account – not just whether Labour or the Conservatives finish second and lead the opposition, but the number of seats each party has. So, there are two things to help you as you think towards the election.

First, I have collected as many election manifestos as possible, which are available for you to read and download. They’re often not very easy to find, which is why I’ve collated them together. Some may be missing, but it’s not a conspiracy – if any aren’t there, it’s because I couldn’t find them!

Second, I have been working to produce a booklet for the Evangelical Alliance in Scotland to help Christians engage with the new powers coming to the Scottish Parliament, exploring the opportunities and challenges they bring. It won’t tell you which party to vote for, but hopefully helps to think about more than just the standard issues which are discussed in election campaigns, as well as exploring how Christians can engage with politicians and politics in general. That booklet is available on the EA Scotland website. Unfortunately it’s not available as a PDF download, but if you would like a copy, let me know and I can pass a copy on to you.

Hopefully both these things are helpful. I may have some other thoughts about the election, but I’ll save them for another time.

Buying a home

Yes, it’s been a bit quiet for the last few weeks. There’s a good reason for it, honest.

You may have noticed I’ve been very quiet recently. Well, there’s a reason for that. I bought a house (technically half a house, I guess – joint mortgage), and it’s taken up a lot of my time. Between packing, moving, buying furniture, making furniture, unpacking, fixing problems, working and a few other things, I’ve been rather short on time. But it’s been interesting – perhaps more for me writing than you reading, but since you’re here, I’ll share it anyway.

The first thing is, everyone else seems to find mortgages a lot more stressful than I do. Perhaps I’ve just spent longer thinking about them than other people. Maybe it’s because I’m borrowing what I can afford to pay back rather than breaking the bank just because the bank would let me.

Maybe it’s because small things have always stressed me out far more than big things. One good friend once said I’d be the perfect person to have around in a dire emergency because I’d basically be unmoved whilst everyone else freaked out. To be fair, that might be true. I was once on an Underground train where there was a bomb scare. Everyone else ran for their lives. I just let them all run off, because I figured if there really was a bomb, it was most likely to be in the big crowd…

Or maybe it’s because, in the warped world of the UK housing market – yes, even in the cheaper reaches of the country – it’s significantly cheaper to pay off a mortgage than to rent at market rate. If I had to pay rent at market rate, that would stress me out!

The second thing: solicitors. It’s amazing what being paid does to them. Before you pay them, they’re helpful. Afterwards, not so much. I’m sure I can hear a cynical voice telling me I should have expected that.

The third thing: it’s amazing the things you discover when you move in, that you’d think might have been mentioned to you, like the bathroom sink that leaks down into the kitchen whenever you run it, or the boiler pipes that leak (and only needed screwing tight), or the external doors that don’t lock – and then you wonder, how did they live with that? We had quite a few things we needed to get seen to or fixed in all:

  • Two leaks
  • The phone line into the house didn’t work
  • The property had no bins
  • The external TV aerial cable was shorn in two
  • Some of the light sockets didn’t work, and some of the power sockets only worked sometimes
  • There were plants growing in some of the guttering
  • Oh yes, and those locks that didn’t lock

The hardest thing was trying to work out what we really needed to get looked at first, and what could wait. I decided making the doors lock was probably the most important thing, but not flooding the house, and making sure it wasn’t about to burn down, were fairly important too. No phone line means no internet, so that couldn’t stay that way for long either. So, the guttering and the TV aerial will have to wait.

The good thing is, in amongst all those things that needed looked at, so far none of them have been terribly expensive or difficult to fix. The electrical work took two days and we needed new sockets, but the wiring itself was fine and we got a shiny new fuse box too. The leaks were simple to fix too, and hadn’t (as far as we can see) caused much damage.

Of course, once you’ve looked at all that, then there’s all the things you want to do to the property outside what you need to do. The list basically consists of redoing every room in the house and building a whole new garden, but obviously you can’t do all those at once. We decided we should probably redecorate one of our bedrooms – in hindsight it would have been good to think about that before we got halfway through building a bed in there. Also, your Ikea Family Card comes in really useful when someone accidentally screws right through a board they’re not meant to.

So, that’s why I’ve been a little under the radar, and probably will be for a bit longer. Now, if you excuse me, I need to go and finish sticking up some new blinds in the front room…

 

 

2015-16 NFL Playoffs – Super Bowl

It’s the biggest game of the (NFL) season – the Super Bowl. It’s Carolina against Denver, Peyton against Cam, and two cracking defenses against one another. Who’s going to win? You know what I’m going to say already, right?

So, after 255 games (let’s ignore the Pro Bowl), a few upsets along the way, and what seems like an unusually high number of injuries to big name players this year, we’ve finally made it to the Super Bowl. Super Bowl 50, from San Francisco.

In the Championship Round, the Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots. They put points on the board early and forced New England to chase from behind. This helped them for two main reasons:

  1. After the first quarter, the Patriots’ defense figured them out and the Broncos’ offense was terrible for the rest of the day;
  2. The Patriots’ offensive line was beaten up before play started, and this only got worse chasing the game.

I said the Broncos needed to rely on their defense to win, and I think that view was vindicated. Their defense overpowered the offensive line to an extent that even quick balls were nigh-on impossible for Tom Brady to complete. The Patriots’ run game was non-existent and they couldn’t give Brady time to complete passes. Despite a late surge, they couldn’t do enough to pull it back. Denver survived.

The Panthers had it much easier. An early pick-six helped, but Carson Palmer struggled to throw well, whilst Cam Newton had no such issues. The Panthers showed they are a very good team on offense, defense and special teams. They have no big weaknesses, and that showed in the crushing scoreline of theiv victory.

So, how will the Super Bowl pan out?

I’ll be honest. I don’t see Denver winning. This isn’t a case of “they’ll need to rely on their defense making plays”. Even that won’t be enough. This is Carolina’s to lose. Here’s why:

  • The Panthers have a pick-six in both their last two games. Peyton Manning leads the league in picks thrown this season.
  • The Broncos’ defense can’t rush the Panthers like they did the Patriots – the Panthers have a healthier offensive line. Not league-leading by any stretch, but certainly better than the Patriots’ had two weeks ago.
  • Cam Newton can escape the pocket in a way Tom Brady (and Peyton Manning) can only dream of.
  • Probably the Panthers’ biggest weakness – the deep ball – is also the Broncos’ biggest weakness.
  • The Broncos scored 30 points only twice this season (once, against the Patriots, required overtime). The Panthers have done it twice in the playoffs alone – against the Seahawks and the Cardinals, who both have highly rated defenses. They also did it eight times in the regular season. They are hard to stop.

My Power Rankings give this to Carolina by 2.267 – 2.042, and I agree. Ron Rivera should be a very happy man at the end of the game tonight.

 

Extracting archive files in Linux

So, you know how to fetch a remote file in Linux, but what do you do if you fetch an archive? How do you extract the files and place them in a directory to work with them?

I previously wrote a how-to guide to fetching a remote file in Linux. That’s great, but once you’ve got the file, sometimes you’ll need to do some more work with it before you can use it.

This is especially true with archive files. Archives generally come in one of two forms:

  1. ZIP files – more commonly used on Windows platforms;
  2. TAR files – more commonly used on Linux and UNIX platforms.

Platforms such as Github and WordPress often offer both ZIP and TAR formats for their downloads.

Once you have the archive file, you need to extract it into a directory. Assuming your file is called wordpress.tar.gz, and you want to extract it to an existing directory called my-site in the same directory, you can use the following command:

tar -xvf wordpress.tar.gz -C my-site/

The -x switch tells tar to extract the files (as you can also use tar to create compressed archives). The -v switch puts tar into verbose mode, so it prints everything it’s doing to the command line, and the -f switch is used in conjunction with the filename to set the file to extract the files from. The -C switch then tells tar to place the extracted files in the directory named at the end of the command.

However, in most cases this will extract the files, but leave the extracted files in a subdirectory. So, in the case of a WordPress archive, the files would be located in my-site/wordpress/ – what if you don’t want the files extracted to a subdirectory?

Not a problem. You can use --strip-components=1 at the end of the command:

tar -xvf wordpress.tar.gz -C my-site/ --strip-components=1

This strips out the top-level directory and leaves the files directly in the my-site folder.

2015-16 NFL Playoffs – Conference Round

Having picked three out of four winners last week, can I pick both winners this week? I hope so. As both number one and number two seeds play each other, on paper at least, it should be hard to separate the teams.

In the Wild Card round, all four road teams won. In the Divisional Round last week, all four home teams won. So, what will happen this week? One home team and one away team?

Perhaps. Here’s how I see the Conference Round games.

New England Patriots at Denver Broncos

Last week, the Patriots hosted the Chiefs, who had won eleven games straight. Although the final score add the game appear close, in truth the Patriots were never really threatened.

The key for the Patriots was that Tom Brady was able to throw quickly, often to Julian Edelman, but also to Rob Gronkowski, and so the Chiefs’ pass rush was nullified. The Patriots didn’t really bother to run the football much. Once the Chiefs were behind, they were always going to find it hard to come back to win.

The Broncos really struggled to get past a Steelers team with an injured quarterback which was also missing its top wide receiver and top two rushers. Trailing for most of the game, the Broncos ground out a result in a game they deserved to lose. Was it the offense that won them the game? No, it was a turnover.

And this is what today’s game comes down to, for me. Denver have shown no ability to generate consistent offense with Peyton Manning as quarterback this year. He has a bad record in the playoffs and a terrible record against Brady’s Patriots (although less so in the playoffs, for the record).

The Patriots don’t turn the ball over much. Fumblers are treated harshly and an Tom Brady interception which isn’t the result of a tipped ball, or that hasn’t been thrown up into the air by a receiver, is headline news. If Denver are going to win today, they need a better gameplan than to wait for the Patriots to turn the ball over. It may happen, but the statistics are against you.

The ratings give this to the Broncos (2.04 to 1.51), but that’s misleading. The Patriots were back to their best last week, and Matt Patricia’s defense will expect to force Peyton Manning into throwing picks. Expect them to goad him into throwing long and taking their chance at picking up the pieces.

Peyton Manning has one touchdown pass at Mile High this season. Tom Brady has three.

Pick: Patriots.

Arizona Cardinals at Carolina Panthers

Arizona won against the Green Bay Packers last week in a thrilling overtime victory. The game was a tight affair until the final quarter, when most of the points were scored. However, despite Aaron Rodgers throwing two exceptional lucky throws at the end of the game, an improvised throw to Larry Fitzgerald on the run in overtime resulted in a huge play, and ultimately, a touchdown, to end the game.

Carolina’s route to the Conference Round was equally eventful, as they led 31-0 at halftime and then let Seattle come back to 31-24 by the end of the game. That’s the second time this season Carolina have taken a huge lead and then let a team come back into the game, although in Seattle’s case, it always seemed like a false hope, from my perspective at least.

So what’s the key in this game? Well, Carolina need to stop Arizona running the ball, and also need to take Larry Fitzgerald out of the game. Arizona need to keep Cam Newton in the pocket and force him to make plays without breaking free.

I was perhaps rash in giving Arizona no chance in this game, but I do still favour the Panthers. Carolina did, however, intercept Russell Wilson twice early on last week, so Arizona need to be careful. The Cardinals’ defense may have a fierce reputation, but the Panthers’ defense is no slouch either. In fact, all four teams left in the playoffs have defenses worth writing home about.

The ratings give this to Carolina (2.42 to 2.41) – it’s the number one home team against the number one road team, and it’s officially too close to call.

Unofficially, this is a matchup of two well-rounded teams, rather than teams littered with stars (although they probably have one each in Cam Newton and Larry Fitzgerald). I’m picking Carolina to win because I think Cam Newton has enough to guide the Panthers home, and it’d be no less than he deserves for his career in the NFL so far.

Pick: Panthers.

Playoff Rankings

For reference, the following table shows the rankings for each of the teams in the playoffs as of the Divisional Round, with their playoff seeding, home and road rankings.

TeamSeedHomeRoad
Carolina Panthers12.422.11
Denver Broncos12.042.04
New England Patriots22.111.51
Arizona Cardinals22.062.41
Kansas City Chiefs52.041.70
Green Bay Packers51.791.79
Pittsburgh Steelers62.061.38
Seattle Seahawks61.721.72

Printing to a file with PowerShell

I need to print a large number of files to PDF. I don’t have time to open each file individually and do it manually, so I needed to find a way to automate the process. PowerShell provided me a solution, with a little ingenuity.

I’ve been trying to tackle a very tricky issue recently. I have a folder of PDF files sitting in a folder, and on a regular basis, the files in that folder need to be password protected and then moved elsewhere.

Acrobat Pro has a great feature called Actions, where you can set a workflow for documents. Normally, I would pick the folder containing these files and use a saved workflow to encrypt each file with a pre-determined password.

Unfortunately, the contents of some of these files (fillable forms) prevent that workflow from applying properly, meaning some files can’t be password protected in this manner. Since they need to be encrypted, it was important to find another way to do this.

I discovered that if I used a PDF printer to print the file to PDF again, the resulting file could be encrypted without issue. This was a good start, but not of much use if I needed to open each file and print the file manually. I needed something that could be automated. Specifically, I needed to be able to:

  • Automatically select the correct printer;
  • Specify a folder and work through each PDF in that folder;
  • Print each PDF to a file without any interaction during the process (so the output path must also be automatic);
  • Avoid interfering with the default print device beyond this task.

So, I turned to PowerShell and Adobe’s PDF printer (which comes with Adobe Acrobat’s licensed products).

Adobe’s PDF printer is useful because it’s possible to specify a default output directory in the printer preferences, and thus avoid a pop-up appearing for each PDF prompting for a save location. Free PDF printers like CutePDF don’t have this option (although I believe they are available in their paid-for products).

After that, everything can be done in PowerShell. Here’s the code I wrote:

$defaultprinter = Get-WmiObject -Query "SELECT * FROM win32_Printer WHERE default=$true"
$PDFprinter = Get-WmiObject -Query "Select * From Win32_Printer Where Name = 'Adobe PDF'"
$PDFprinter.SetDefaultPrinter()
Dir C:\test\*.pdf | Foreach-Object { Start-Process -FilePath $_.FullName -Verb Print }
$defaultprinter.SetDefaultPrinter()

The first line retrieves the current default printer. This is so that, at the end of the task, the default printer is restored (it will be changed for the duration of this task).

The second line retrieves the Adobe PDF printer. On my computer, it’s called “Adobe PDF”. If the named printer doesn’t exist, the script will return a horrible looking error and fail (I’ve no real need for error handling in this script).

The third line of this script sets the Adobe PDF printer from the second line as the default printer.

The fourth line of the script takes a specified directory and, for each PDF in that directory, prints the document. As the default printer is the Adobe PDF printer, that’s the printer that is used. In the Adobe PDF printer, I’ve already set a couple of options:

  • Disabled the option to show the PDF as it’s created (I want the task to run in the background as far as possible);
  • Specified an output directory where the PDFs will be saved to;
  • Set the PDF quality settings (in this case, “Standard”, for compatibility).

The final line restores the default printer, as it’s not likely I would want the Adobe PDF printer set as the default printer.

For me, that’s not the end of the process as I then need to go back in to Acrobat and encrypt the files, but the PowerShell script makes this a much quicker process than it would otherwise be.

I’d love to be able to encrypt the files from the same script, but unfortunately I’ve not found a way to do that. Nevertheless, a time-consuming problem made easier.

Automating Linux website creation

I create a lot of test websites. Sometimes it’s for testing new things, other times it’s for testing upgrades. I’ve always found it’s a hassle to set a new website up, so I’ve tried to automate it.

Back in the days of shared hosting, setting up a new website was easy. It was as simple as:

  1. Set your nameservers to those of your web host;
  2. Log in to their system (usually cPanel) and click something like “New domain” or “New subdomain”.

Since I moved to using a VPS, it’s not as easy as that any more. Firstly, I use CloudFlare, so I use their namservers. Secondly, I don’t run cPanel, or Plesk, which is similar. There are two reasons I don’t use them:

  1. They make hosting more expensive, as they require licences;
  2. They further increase cost as they require much more powerful servers to run.

Currently I can run my VPS for about $5 per month. If I used cPanel or Plesk, they would cost about $50 per month. So, if I can do without, it’s a big saving.

Setting up a new website

There are a few things required in setting up a new website (I won’t cover setting up a VPS – that’s another series I’m working on):

  1. You need a user to own the files;
  2. You need to create the required directory structure and set permissions on it;
  3. You need to create a MySQL user and password;
  4. You need to create a MySQL database and control permissions to it;
  5. You need to set up the web server to make the address reachable.

I’ll assume the DNS is set elsewhere, or using a hosts file. I use Nginx as my web server.

That’s quite a few things to set up, and it would be easy to miss something or get a step wrong. Even if you get it right, it will take a few minutes. The longest part is usually setting up the web server – especially with Nginx that configuration is set centrally and isn’t easily overridden outside of that.

One day I got bored of doing it all manually, so I wrote a Bash script to take care of it. It’s not perfect, but it does a decent job. I decided I’d make it available via GitHub.

Currently, I make a folder it /opt/ and call it something like website-creator. I can run it as follows:

sudo bash /opt/website-creator/create-website.sh

When run, it does the following:

  • Prompts for the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) which will be used to access the website when it’s live;
  • Checks a folder for that FQDN doesn’t already exist (in a pre-determined folder);
  • Prompts for the Linux user who should own the folder for that website;
  • Checks to see if the user exists, and creates the user if it doesn’t;
  • Prompts for MySQL admin credentials;
  • Once authenticated, prompts for a database name;
  • Creates the database;
  • Checks for a MySQL user with the same name as the Linux user which should own the files, and creates a user with that username if it does not exist;
  • Gives that user access to the database which has been created;
  • Creates the folder structure (I use public, private, logs and backups);
  • Copies index.html and 404.html files to the web root for that site;
  • If necessary, creates a file with the MySQL password for the newly-created user and places it in the private directory, with read-access to the owner only;
  • Changes the owner of the website folder structure to the Linux user previously specified (including the file with the MySQL password);
  • Copies a template Nginx configuration to the sites-available directory;
  • Runs a search and replace on that file to insert the domain name and root directory;
  • Activates the site (placing a symbolic link in sites-enabled);
  • Reloads the Nginx configuration;
  • If necessary, prints to the screen the password of the new Linux user.

It’s not perfect, but it does mean I can set up a working website in five seconds, rather than five minutes. There are, of course, some things that may need to be changed once it’s done, like modifications to the site’s Nginx configuration, but without changing anything, it will happily serve static and PHP content.

There’s also a file where runtime variables can be stored. At the moment, it has two:

  • WEBROOTFOLDER – this is the folder the website directories will be created in (I use /usr/share/nginx/);
  • NGINXCONFIG – this is where the Nginx configuration is stored (in Ubuntu, that’s /etc/nginx/, but it may be different on other systems).

It makes my life a lot easier. Maybe it will help a few other people too.