Sunday, December 04, 2005

MJ Cole in Ocean Rooms

On Friday evening an old favorite artist of mine known as MJ Cole made an appearance in Brighton at the club Ocean Rooms. Strangely, the event will go into my memory not because of MJ Cole, but because of another band that gave it's appearance on the first floor of the club (Ocean Rooms has 3 different venues). The band is supposedly called (I’m not sure yet, but according to the flyer one can make its assumptions) Backscratch. It really reminded me of Don Johnson Big Band whom I went to see in Estonia a couple of years ago and whom I found really good...very energetic jazzy, reggae, hip-hop kind of mixture. Guys looked very young and as far as I understood they just started with their holy cause.... Well, I hope they continue and that someday I’ll hear from them again.

MJ to me seemed tired of what he was doing. He mundanely played his records: basically ordinary UK garage... The MC waffling occasionally, didn’t' make any sense as well. Sorry MJ, but I know you can do better than this... I also found some pictures from the event on the net.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Maybe we are posing the wrong question?

Yesterday when coming home from my training I was amused by an article published in the leading sports magazine of Estonia and then subsequently in one of the major news portal of Estonia: Delfi. The article follows the current fight in the Estonian Football Federation between distingushed persons: the president of the federation Mr. Kannik and the owner and the rebuilder of Estonian "football" Mr. Pohlak. I do not want to go to the details and the background of this conflict, but some facts need to be clarified, because I feel that this article is really written bearing in mind only one part of the argument.

Firstly still, I have to assert that I’m not totally objective when writing, because I know one of the counterparts very well. While living in Estonia I used to play in the same club with him - that made clear, I continue with my argumentation. Leaving aside that the article has been written in a very argessive style, using too many and wrong extreme terms, i must say that some of the accusations in this story are quite bold and wrong. The thing I can prove is the argument, which goes about accusing the referees after games, and the notion of a bureaucrat seems really confusing in this article. I can sense that this word has a negative meaning, but what are the accusations? How does the article explain the fact that Ministry of Defense was one of the most smoothly run public institutions in Estonia?

Most importantly I must note the question posed by the author of the article is essentially wrong. I feel that Estonian football doesn't have to take any decisions between Mr. Kannik and Mr. Pohlak. Both of the people should stay if possible- it's just time to look over the rules how football is being governed in Estonia. Is Estonian national football only about one club or are there places for others as well? Is it anywhere else in Europe that one private body is basically at the same time the owner of the football federation, the league and the clubs? In the ordinary world the division of powers regulate this notion. So hopefully, even if one of these people steps down, the process of democratization in the Estonian football federation continues.