Hunter and Edward
Freakonomics talks to Ralph Steadman:
Q: What’s your favorite personal story about Hunter Thompson?
A: Hunter had a Mynah bird called Edward. He kept it in a big iron cage. Then he would creep towards the cage and bang the wires loudly and say menacingly, “I’m coming to get you Edward,” and the bird would start to squawk.
Hunter would open the cage and grab the bird amidst more squawking and Hunter saying, “You cannot escape, Edward! I have you in my power,” and the poor bird would struggle and peck furiously at Hunter’s hands which held the creature. “Yes! Edward!! It’s me and you are doomed. There is no bird god who can save you now. It is futile to struggle — and I am hungry, Edward. Hungry!!”
Then he would simply allow it to jump back on its perch. I think they tormented each other for fun. The bird often sat on Hunter’s shoulder.
There’s no relevance to Fulham. No news today at all. I did a big long piece on the failings of the French team, but it didn’t seem worth posting. In short, you go out of a tournament, playing like that, and don’t pick Sagna, Clichy, Mexes, Diarra, Flamini, Menez, Cisse, Nasri (much) or Ben Arfa, well, what’s going to happen? The French revival could be swift and effective once they tweak things a bit.
Anyway. Roy’s presumably busy in Austria or Switzerland, so no news for us over here. Russia v Sweden tonight. I suspect it’s games like this that Roy will watch very very carefully. Also, Tamas of Romania, anyone?
I thought he looked alright.
Always good to read a Hunter quote.
Haven’t noticed Tamas but here’s my list of potential targets (mainly tall strikers). They seem to be within our means but I suspect I could be woefully wrong about that.
Pavylchenko (Russia) 26, currently playing for Spartak Moscow. He’s stood out for me but would probably want European football.
Huntelaar (Holland) 24, currently playing for Ajax. Way out of our league?
Johan Elmander (Sweden) 27, currently playing for Toulouse. Think he IS realistic but not sure if he’s good enough.
Mario Gomez (Germany) 22, currently playing for Stuttgart. He’s looked poor BUT he has scored domestically and is very young to be making his national sides starting 11. No doubt destined for a bigger German side at some point.
Only non-striker is Daniel Pranjic (Croatia) who is a 26 year old left midfielder. Plays for Heerenveen (sp?) and has some nice touches.
No doubt Roy will have much better info than the few games I’ve bothered to catch. Looking forward to seeing who he finds.
Chopper
18 Jun 08 at 10:45 pm
Since this post is an invitation to speculation: is one of Hugo Almeida or Marcus Rosenberg completely out of our range?
Ilya
19 Jun 08 at 1:34 am
OK this is a Hunter Thompson and not a talking bird thread but I like this from Ken Campbell.
“My parrot speaks from a bird’s point of view. Rather than ‘Pretty Polly’ I encourage Doris to say things like, ‘I’m up here and you’re down there,’ and, ‘I was in a pet shop and then Ken bought me.’
Tony Gilroy
19 Jun 08 at 7:41 am
Korkmaz - left winger from Austria anyone?
Beardyoldgit
19 Jun 08 at 4:45 pm