Good things come to those who wait

Paul Greengrass has won the Bafta for best director for United 93, but I still predict a different outcome at the Oscars in two weeks time.

Martin Scorsese is the overwhelming favourite to win the Best Director award at the Academy Awards for his gangster epic The Departed, and is priced by Ladbrokes at 1/4, ahead of Greengrass at 6/1.

This has much to do with the fact that Scorsese, despite being nominated six times, has never won an Oscar for direction. He joins an illustrious crowd including Fellini, Hitchcock, Bergman, Kubrick and Welles that have failed to win Oscars, but having been snubbed for the likes of Raging Bull and Goodfellas, there is a feeling amongst Hollywood commentators and bloggers that this will finally be Scorsese’s year.

The Departed is an excellent film and highly entertaining, but it is not Scorsese’s by a long shot and perhaps not even the best amongst the candidates (United 93 gets this one in my book). However, the Academy’s determination to give Marty the gong will probably count against Greengrass following up his success at the Baftas. Why else would he be nominated for The Aviator and Gangs of New York, both critical and commerical flops in recent years?

Perhaps it is unfair that Marty will probably win due to what is essentially a sympathy vote, but for his challenging, entertaining and pioneering films that have been snubbed, he deserves it this time.

The pope smokes dope

I have yet to see the front pages of the Sunday papers, but going through the UK press online David Cameron’s youthful dalliance with drugs at Eton College seems to make up a large percentage of them.

Perhaps I’m wrong here, but are the media that out of touch that they think this is a story people care about, or is it just a slow news day? Does anyone really believe that teenage flirtations with drugs will affect his credentials as leader of the country?

Bill Clinton famously declared once that he had smoked cannabis before, but not inhaled, and in recent years there has been a rash of political figures coming out of the weed woodwork. Not surprising really, considering that 44% of 16 to 29 year-olds have tried cannabis at some point in their lives, so this is bound to include some young minister, listening to Pink Floyd in a 1970s Oxford hall of residence.

With the Democrat nominations starting to filter in in the USA, it’s interesting to note the response to the question of drugs from Barack Obama, the African American senator from Illinois. He told an October 2006 interview: “Oh, look, you know, when I was a kid, I inhaled. Frequently. That was the point. You know, it’s, it’s not something I make light of. It’s something that I wrote actually about in my first book, and it was reflective of the struggles and confusion of a teen-age boy. And in that sense, I think, the vast majority of Americans understand that teenage boys are frequently confused.” Obama’s openness and experience as a young black American will put him in good stead when he comes up against Clinton et. al.

Cameron’s PR at times has left a lot to be desired since coming in as the Conservative leader, pitching himself as Blair on a bike, and his Eton education and position at the top of the Tories will mean he will never be seen as a ‘man of the people’, but to believe that a few tokes twenty years ago makes someone incapable of leading a country is ridiculous.

Does Benitez cut it?

Rafa Benitez’s post-match mutterings about Everton being a small club was a useful exercise in PR; throw something incendiary out there towards your neighbours and the failings of your own team will be ignored. Everton’s scalp of four out six points against their rivals was as much about the ineptitude of the Liverpool team in both encounters than the brilliance of the Blues, and these flaws were on show in the game yesterday just as they were in the 3-0 Everton win in September at Goodison Park. There has been much talk this week that the Reds may still have a chance at a league shot – on this evidence I would suggest that it remains a two horse race.

The reliance upon Steven Gerrard to win games has been their fatal flaw this year, with the captain’s form rarely touching the level he has shown previously. Rumours abound regarding his loss of form on Merseyside, as the Everton fans constantly reminded him, but without Gerrard playing at his best they are distinctly pedestrian. Liverpool started the game with three strikers and the attack-minded Jermaine Pennant on the flank, but with no-one in midfield pulling the strings, it was a frustrating afternoon for messrs. Crouch, Kuyt and Bellamy.

Benitez may have won the hearts of Anfield with his Champions League triumph in his first year, and while his pedigree in Spain points towards class, he has gradually come to resemble Houllier mk. II. His transfer policy, which has included big money deals for the likes of Crouch, Bellamy, Pennant, Gonzalez, Luis Garcia, Morientes and Kromkamp has not paid off and it’s no use complaining about Chelsea’s transfer funds when the money you have spent yourself has been wasted away. For a supposed tactical guru, Liverpool’s orthodox long-ball game doesn’t really cut it. During Everton’s 3-2 defeat to Chelsea in December, Jose Mourinho changed Chelsea’s game around at half time and ended up with three points. At no point did his Spanish nemesis appear to do have the ability to do the same on Saturday.

Everton’s defensive performance, as it has been on several occasions against ‘big teams’ this season, was fantastic. The return of Tony Hibbert to right-back has allowed Neville to revert to his central-midfield berth and while he may not be the ‘white Patrick Vieira’ he was proclaimed to be after a performance of high standard against Arsenal for Manchester United, he was excellent alongside Lee Carsley yesterday. Stubbs, at 35, rolled back the years to keep the Liverpool strikers at bay and Yobo and Lescott have found an understanding on the pitch that augers well for Everton’s backline future.

As for Benitez’s jibe, it was classless and ultimately factually incorrect. Perhaps Liverpool fans should ask if he is the man to bring the club forward and the new owners that are due to come in will have to look at it without the sentimentality that the present board holds following their European triumph.

The Cathedral That Never Was

The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool is currently exhibiting the restored model for Edwin Lutyen’s original Roman Catholic Cathedral design. The model was assembled in the 1930s to display how the ambitious final building would look, but like the design for the Cathedral itself it was cancelled due to a lack of funds and was left in storage for decades in the Crypt underneath the site on Brownlow Hill.

Having taken over ten years to restore to its original state, it is undeniably an impressive construction. At around 12ft high and costing around half a million to carry out, the restoration was a huge operation and one that the people of Liverpool should be glad has been carried out, just to gain an impression of how impressive this building would have been.

The new Cathedral’s construction was given it’s blessing by the Pope in 1933 and in June of that year crowds came to see the first foundation stone being laid. Work was halted in 1941 because of World War II, but by1953 the estimated costs had risen from £3m to £27m. It was abandonded, and the project was replaced by the concrete modernist design that stands today. At 510ft, the Roman Catholic Cathedral for Liverpool would have been taller than St. Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London.

As impressive as it was, rather than stand stunned by the conservation work that was carried out, it was hard not to feel ‘what if?’ throughout the exhibit. It is hard to imagine the imposing presence of a 500 foot Cathedral dominating the city, but it was a very realistic dream in the 1930s. Sadly, post World War frugalism put an end to that.

With the massive re-generation that the city is enjoying at the current time, this is the perfect time to show the model. Had Lutyen’s dream been carried out, would Liverpool have faced the decline it did in the 1900s, or would it have cemented it’s position as one of the world’s great cities? Looking at the concrete monstrosity that is the modern day Metropolitan Cathedral from my window, there are pangs of regret and tragedy that the Cathedral was not allowed to be built and the entire episode seems to sum-up Liverpool’s history over the past 100 years, where the city’s fall from grace was monumental. In this new period of rejuvenation, hopefully the same tragedies do not befall Liverpool again.