Leeds Rhinos reach Grand Final

Last season Leeds were written off. Many supporters lost faith. It was considered an impossibility to win the Grand Final from fifth. It had never been done. Yet somehow, perhaps due to specific experience Leeds beat the league leaders Warrington in a dramatic semi final. I had tickets for the final but, unfortunately couldn't make it. On the morning of the game I was up and out early but my brain was messed up. Hallucinations meant to here was no way I could drive. I can't explain how difficult this was for me. As a supporter you can wait a lifetime for nights like that.
Listening at home on the radio perhaps the greatest final ever saw Leeds come from behind twice in vicious rain to take the title. Against all the odds Kevin Sinfield, Leeds greatest all time points scorer led the team to heroic victory. His post match speech is a you tube legend that brings tears to my eyes after many repeat viewings. He dedicated the win to all the fans but also to all those people who wrote them off. Truly inspirational and worth watching if you are ever under the cosh from knobhead detractors.
To triumph in such adversity is rare in any sport. Earlier this year whilst away in Weymouth I saw Leeds play Wigan in another blinder of a game. Again written off Leeds attacked Wigan, considered at the time the best Rugby team. Every play, however expansive Leeds put in it seemed to come off. Casual viewers, unfamiliar with the sport became converts as my phone bleeped texts from excited people, inducted in to the greatest game of all. There is no sport that comes close in excitement to Rugby League when it all comes together. Wigan were wounded by the loss. Leeds went on to play in the final.
I drove down to the new Wembley with my brother who I went to the final with in 1977. We discussed changes in the game that had happened over the years. It was an enjoyable day out. Warrington were better on the day. A team who play a style of rugby very like Leeds. It was after all Warringtons now coach Tony Smith who ushered in Leeds current spell as top team in super league. I recall going to an off season friendly at Headingley, his first game in charge. I never thought this would be the start of a historic era for Leeds.
Whether it is because many involved in promoting and running the game have alliances on the other side of the Pennines I know not, but it is certainly true that Leeds are seldom acknowledged as being the dominant team of recent times. The Challenge Cup, Rugby Leagues secondary competition is shown on BBC whilst super league and the play offs are on Sky. Maybe down to Leeds failure to lift this trophy and it's terrestrialy viewed status Leeds have gone less noticed by the general public. But what they have achieved under three coaches with a team built on local talent should be regarded in the same way Wigans long period of dominance back when they, along with Leeds were the only full time professional teams.
Coming in to this set of play offs Leeds finishing again in fifth were, if anything, even more written off than last year. A victory over Wakefield, a team who were on a long streak of wins was if not a huge upset was still considered against the odds. Next up, a trip to France to play Catalan Dragons is always amongst the toughest fixtures. Their home record amongst the best. A Friday night away saw a desperate Leeds again win against all the odds. Leeds and super league top try scorer Danny Maguire in a series of heated exchanges looked out of sorts. This culminated in a stray arm resulting in a one match ban. A bloodied Leeds returned to England emboldened by the surprise twin victories.
All this week I had been too scared to mention the Friday night semi final. Wigan, in the controversial club call system had chosen Leeds as the weakest team for them to play at home. This must have got Leeds backs up. Last year Warrington had chosen Leeds as the easiest game. This had backfired on them. How would it work out for Wigan.
Coming in to the game, Danny Maguires suspension was equalled out by the news that Sam Tomkins, one of Wigans star players was out. Under Sinfields complete generalship, Leeds dominated the first half, going in 11 nil up. Only one try had been scored though, an interception by Kallum Watkins. Sinfield opted to kick a penalty, something often considered not exactly unsportsmanlike in Rugby League, but a little defeatist or negative. Rugby League is a more noble game than its southern cousin, Rugby Union where a good penalty is often cheered. Sinfield, however is far from negative and can read strategy and game pattern better than perhaps any player in the history of the game. Slotting through a drop goal for a single point also seemed odd at the time.I doubt there were many viewers who at this stage thought the game would be so defence orientated.
In the second half Leeds held on. Wigan scored two tries, converting both to take a one point lead. The game appeared to be swinging in favour of the pie eaters.
A quick aside. Wigan are not, as is often thought, called pie eaters because of their diet. It refers to the great mining strike of the 1920s. Wigan miners broke rank and scabbishly returned to work. Headlines read 'Wigan miners eat humble pie'. It is from here the name comes.
Leeds held on, grinding down the minutes. Richard Silverwood, as if wearing a Wigan shirt beneath his top awarded penalty after penalty to Wigan. Even neutrals could see how unfairly he was policing the game. Everyone, apart from Leeds diehards were against another Leeds final appearance. The Rugby League establishment wanted their pet team, Wigan in that final and Silverwood would do his best to ensure that.
Three minutes from the end, Wigan had been unable to cash in anything from their flurry of refereeing decisions, Leeds were awarded a penalty beneath the posts. Sir Kev does not miss these. Wigan 12 Leeds 13. Many are saying this was the best game of the season. Leeds held on for another unlikely victory in circumstances that must have left Wigan gutted. Losing, against the odds to Leeds in both this seasons semi finals.
High lights will be shown at 5pm on BBC 2 on Sunday for anyone unfamiliar with the sport. This will convert you.
Today Saint Helen's play Warrington in the other semi. After last years final I really felt for Saints. To have lost five successive finals must hurt. Just as we did at Wembley. If Leeds don't win I would like Saints to. So today I suppose that means I want Saints to win. It would be nice to get Warrington back for the Challenge Cup, though, so whoever wins, bring it on.
Looking forward for next weekends trip to Old Trafford. It will be a personal victory too after missing last years grand final. A victory over my own demons.

Gulls at Dawn

Days

Floor

Sky, sky, sky...

Skreeworld Photography

I hope that it doesn't go unnoticed that at Skreeworld we do not post photographs of people nor in any other way invade people's privacy. Though chunks of text are autobiographical, no characters are singled out for exposure. Likenesses to anyone are accidental. The culture of unwanted photographic exposure exemplified by the recent pictures of Kate Middleton has wounded street photographers. Cameras are now everywhere. As Mike Skinner put it 'how am I supposed to do a line in front of complete strangers when I know they all got cameras.'. Clearly situations where policing the police is beneficial to society cameras can help us all (bar corrupt police) yet this is often outweighed by the loss of privacy. Recent trends for loathsome Internet sites where photographs are posted up of girls unaware of being photographed and not compliant in sharing the images are sad indictments of where society may be heading. To be clear Skreeworld posts only pictures of consensual adults, animals, plants or objects.

Skreeworld Estate

The Basis of Self Reliance

The spirit of enquiry, master of ones own stuff. Understanding and repairing the machinery of existence.

Freedom is found through submission to rules and it is through knowledge and skill that creativity comes. The analogy of learning to play a musical instrument . The novice is restricted. The idea that skill limits is modern  propagana. Learning a new language. Colleges continue to pedal a myth of innocence. Fixing things is a cure for narcissism. The builder can attain a perfection where as a doctor or mechanic is forced to engage with a reality outside of their control. Craft theories based on making from scratch fall here, i suggest a fresh approach. Aristotle gave these arts a seperate classification; surgery and mechanics are stochastic arts, they require you to be attentive, like if you were in conversation, not assertive like when giving a lecture. We need  to look at fixing stuff, the stochastic arts, the narcissism of making outside of societal context has led to a craft theory of ignorance. 

At school we were all taught as if we were going to university even though few were and many would be builders, mechanics, machinists. Now, in colleges students are being taught by people who have never had to survive in the world, never spent long self employed. My final visits as a lecturer exposed me to exmakers who wre teaching blindly. They had lost touch with the real world. Projects such as coffee tables, hall stands, single throne like chairs were often run.  Maybe ten people run businesses just doing this. The worrying part is those teaching seemed unaware. Students left college needing to relearn how to do it all over again. There are two types of knowing;knowing how and knowing that. It seems colleges are poor places for teaching know how. They can only successfully teach know that. Information, not tacit know how. In the information age it is argued that knowledge can drive an economy. This holds true untill you need someone to fit your wardrobe or fix your car. As a buisness I would be far more likely to employ a someone who has come through trade induction, apprenticeship, than a middle class exstudent full of diahorea about 'innovation'. These students are taught to get by by interpreting values in to work that are not real.

Architects rarely get to see their wild dreams, furniture makers do. Perhaps it is this that leads to the narcissism that drives them to construct false realities. Trade has collective, familial knowledge. This is lost when we merely produce innovative selfish types. Celebrity culture has seeped in. What once was our strength is being abandoned in the hope students will join a tiny elite, able to make incongruous objects. It seems as short sighted to teach the top few who may become designer makers as it is to just teach the few school kids who want to go in to  what is wrong with honest trade?

I gave up teaching because of having to fit in to such systems. I would be asked to give a slide show on my work. At first such pompous acts served to flatter my ego. As time went on i felt the students were being sold lies. It wasnt that me and other visitting lecturers  didnt make these things it was that it was irrelevant. Students believed there was room to make like there was a public there entranced by their creativity. In truth their jobs will mainly be in the service of others dreams. And what is more, this how it should be. I can imagine nothing worse than having to live with some of the monsters these designer maker students produce. I had been fooled myself by a previous generation of visiting lecturers in to believing I could survive through sales of exhibited speculative work. No one does.

What is wrong with having a context in society. There are pleasures to be had in collaboration. In making things other people want. Even if you dont always design it. 

It was for similar reasons i gave up art to do joinery as a youth. Unquestionable values, shared with others. Supporting your art with theories so others can understand is isolating. I enjoy the silent admiration i get from making joinery well. You doint need to put a spin on it. Structure employing physical laws offers us a morality too. If your work is dependent on words it falls in your absence. Structures can be qualified as true and right. When your work requires interpretation it has questionable values. Herein lies the irony. Joinery gave solid ground underfoot, morality. Furniture designer making took this away. The foundations become unsound, the slope slippery. This is why I now make a different type of furniture on the whole. There will be the odd ego piece but I would not wish to be defined by this.

Juicy Autumn Shit

A 1mg reduction