Ups and Downs

When I was 18 I went to Africa on my gap year. I taught at Chengelo School in Zambia for 8 months, and on one occasion, me and a few friends spent a week cycling through the South Luangwa Game Park. It was about the most exciting thing I had ever done (although I have since built an Excel macro that highlights alternate rows of a selected range), and it was also about as close to "roughing it" as I have ever come. We cycled hard through difficult terrain for about 8 hours each day; we camped out every night; I wore the same pair of pants (British) and socks for the entire week; our food was meagre - even on the few nights when Tim "Butterfingers" Brown didn't spill the prized packet of Supernoodles all over the African earth; and on one occasion Matthew almost got eaten by a hippo.

And then, on the last night, we arrived at this place. The owners had children at the school were we were teaching, and incredibly generously allowed all 4 of us to stay there for the night.

This was incredibly generous for at least 2 reasons:

1. A night in the lodge usually costs hundreds of dollars, and

2. No sooner had we arrived, than the aforementioned Mr. Brown launched a savage verbal assault on the family actually paying to stay in the lodge, unfortunately demonstrating that his conversational adroitness matched his manual dexterity:

Nice husband of paying family: "So what do you do Tim?"

Brown: "Well I was studying law at Christ Church, Oxford. But I dropped out as I really hated the course and all the people were horrible. What do you do?"

Nice husband of paying family: "I'm a lawyer."

Brown: "Ah. OK. Where did you study?"

Nice husband of paying family: "Christ Church, Oxford."

All: [Nervous laughter. Sound of cutlery scraping plates.]

Anyway, we arrived at Tafika and took our first showers for a week looking up at the stars. They were hot. (The stars were also hot I suppose, but I was primarily referring to the showers). We feasted as lavishly upon barbecued meat as the malaria-ridden hordes of mosquitos had feasted on our exposed flesh over the preceding week. The bed was the comfiest I had ever slept in. It was paradise.

And the great thing was that the hardship of the previous week made the luxury and comfort even more exquisite.

And it's the same with relegation.

The bottom 3 teams in the "EPL" (grrr...) each year get relegated to the (rather ridiculously-named) Championship; the bottom 4 teams in the Championship get relegated to the (even more moronically-named) 1st division etc. DOwn about 127 levels, until you reach the Ryman Stationers' League, the Unibond Northern Premier League, and the Beazer Homes League.

American sports do not have relegation, and I think it's a flaw in their structure. (And actually, come to think of it, it's another pretty good example of their cushy communism...).

If you're a Bolton fan or a West Brom fan or a Middlesbrough fan in England (and admittedly their total combined fanbase can be counted on the fingers of one finger [sic.]), you spend most weeks with the heartache and frustration of watching your team get outclassed and beaten. You scrap, you struggle, you win the occasional 6-pointer, you sneak a point at the Emirates by performing GBH on Arsenal, and it all comes down to the last day of the season, when you need 6 other teams to lose, and to beat Man United by at least 13 goals at Old Trafford yourselves. And some (most in the case of West Brom) years, you lose, and you go down. And it's misery. But some years, results go in your favour, you pull it out of the bag, against all the odds Akinbiyi is more prolific than my hyperlinking and nets 14 at the Stretford End. And you survive.

And it's fantastic!

It's as good as winning the league. It's probably better, because you haven't been spoiled by success.

Supporting Man United, this feeling is not one that I have experienced much as a fan (although I am also an avid follower of the mighty Barrow AFC, who do their best to compensate in most years).

But the sports teams I play for are, pretty much without exception, about as competent as Parcelforce. My record as King's College Football Captain was:

Played: 9

Won: 0

Drawn: 0

Lost: 9

Scored: 2

Conceded: 54

Needless to say, that year we were relegated (and, to compound the despair, we lost our lucrative deal with the Curry King, when our sponsor realised that we were to sporting excellence as Tiger Woods is to marital fidelity).

But in a thrilling climax to the 2008 season, Old Habs II cricket team - once again despite the shackles of my staggeringly incompetent leadership - conjured a couple of victories from nowhere, benefited from the bankruptcy of a relegation rival, and survived by the narrowest of margins in the (this time more aptly-named) 10th division of the Hertfordshire Cricket League. Honestly, I think it was a better feeling than if we had got promoted.

Here's some reasons why relegation is great:

- It keeps things interesting for unsuccessful teams, right until the last day of the season.

- It gives unsuccessful teams a taste of glory.

- It allows teams in lower divisions to fill the vacated places (i.e. it keeps them hungry and rewards their success).

- And...the hardship (or the threat of hardship) makes the Coppinger's guesthouse even more glorious.

Dear America, Relegation is great. You should try it.

Varsity Blues

I'm watching the NCAA Championship Game between Butler and Duke right now. It's half-time and Duke are up by 1 point.

And it's great.

There's a brass band, cheerleaders, 70,000 people in the stadium, and…wait for it…IT'S ON TV!

I know less about basketball than I know about the political system of Burkina Faso, but I know it's exciting (the Championship Game that is, not the Berkinabe government - although I am intrigued as to whether Compaore will stand for a third term in the forthcoming elections). And I'm also learning all the time. Because IT'S ON TV!

College sports in America are awesome.

Beaver Stadium in Pennsylvania holds 107,282 people.

In England, the crowd at even the biggest university football games consists of:
- About 4 or 5 WAGs
- 3 substitutes
- An elderly couple who are down for the weekend to visit their grandson
- The elderly couple's dog (in most games, the dog runs onto the pitch on at least one occasion, and sinks its teeth into the ball, puncturing it. 64% of games are thereupon abandoned, because that is the only ball that either team possesses. The remaining 36% of games are finished by replacing the indentured ball with a collection of plastic bags wrapped up extremely tightly in elastic bands).

Most American college teams are sponsored by Nike.

My college football team was sponsored by the Curry King, which lucrative deal entitled us to free poppadoms on Thursday nights.

American college sports are ON TV!

The closest an English university football match got to televised coverage was when Greg Foot did an episode of Whizz Whizz Bang Bang on ingenious potential uses for recycled plastic bags.

The Boat Race is an exception to the rule. And I do think it would be great if college football had a similar end-of-season competition to the Big Dance…

…But American college sports are to English college sports as Amazon is to Parcelforce.

And did I mention THEY'RE ON TV!

Customer Service

Someone probably once said: "There are two types of forces in this world. Forces for good and forces for evil". Kiva is a force for good. Gravity is a force for good. Armed forces can be used for good (the defeat of Hitler during World War Two) or evil (the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s). Parcelforce is a force for evil.

This might sound like a slightly overblown claim (in contrast to my compensation claim from Parcelforce, which was, in my humble, if admittedly subjective, opinion, fairly modest in relation to their incompetence), and obviously that's because it is. But if "evil" is a strong word, I would strongly recommend that Parcelforce should not be a force you send parcels with.

For those of you who have not yet given up on my ridiculously complex sentence structures, and fortunate enough never to have encountered it, Parcelforce is a UK-based parcel-delivery company.

On December 7th I paid £62.89 to deliver a parcel from London to San Francisco in 24 hours using Parcelforce's "Global Express" service. I thought this was quite a large sum of money. I mean, it's not like I was sending a grand piano or transporting a live elephant, I was sending a small bottle of perfume and a picture frame. But I was impressed by the 24 hour delivery "guarantee", and it was a belated birthday present for my girlfriend, so I thought I'd blow the bank on it.

The "authorisation date/time" of my parcel was recorded as 00:33 on the 7th December, so I was a little surprised when the parcel was not collected from my house until 15.09 later that afternoon. By my maths, that left Parcelforce only 9 hours and 24 minutes to deliver the parcel from my house in Harrow, England to my girlfriend's office in San Francisco, America. But I reassured myself with the assumption that Parcelforce must have some "technologically ground-breaking new super-fast-jet design prototype that reduces transit time by 78% and eliminates carbon emissions". I also assumed that this prototype had VTOL capabilities so it could land in a vacant parking space just outside my girlfriend's office, and that it was piloted by Usain Bolt.

I was a little bit more surprised when the parcel was returned to my house in Harrow on the 9th December because it had "insufficient paperwork". I was surprised for several reasons, but principally:

1) I had spent about 30 minutes on the phone to 4 different Parcelforce employees on the 7th December, to ensure that the parcel had "sufficient paperwork". And I had been told by the 4th employee that the parcel had "sufficient paperwork".

2) The driver of the Parcelforce van did not know why the paperwork was "insufficient".

3) The driver of the Parcelforce van was not Usain Bolt.

4) No paperwork was added to the parcel before it was taken away again, with the guarantee that the paperwork was now "sufficient".

I was unfortunately not able to witness these events in person (my heroic dad was left holding the fort in my Parisian absence), but I imagine the exchange went something like this:

[Doorbell rings]

Dad: Hello.
Not Bolt: Er…hi, I have your parcel here. It has "insufficient" paperwork, so I am returning it.
Dad: OK. What is "insufficient" about it?
Not Bolt: I don't know.
Dad: OK. Shall I just keep it here then?
Not Bolt: Er…yeah, that would be great.
Dad: OK. But that's not really going to work is it, because then it wouldn't reach San Francisco, which is sort of the intended destination.
Not Bolt: Yes I suppose you have a point there.
Dad: OK. Is there a way that we can establish what paperwork will be required to facilitate the parcel's delivery?
Not Bolt: I suppose we could call up the office and ask?
Dad: OK.

[Dad calls up the office to ask. Is put on hold. Music plays in the background. It is Wagner. Entire Ring Cycle completes before Parcelforce employee picks up the phone. Employee does not work in the right office. Transfers dad. Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven (extended version) repeats 3 and a half times before next employee in the right office picks up the phone. Tells dad that paperwork is "sufficient". Hangs up immediately.]

Dad: OK. According to that man, the paperwork is "sufficient".
Not Bolt: Oh yes, I see it now. It says here "sufficient" paperwork. I had misread it as "insufficient" paperwork. OK well that's fine then.
Dad: OK. Can my son get his money back?

[Driver is seen sprinting back down the drive, slams door to van, and speeds off, knocking over 3 garden gnomes and a young sapling in course of hasty exit. Dad closes door. Sighs.]

Well this banterous tete-a-tete took place on Wednesday 9th December. So did the parcel arrive on Thursday 10th December (I hear you ask). Er…actually…not. And nor did it arrive on Friday 11th December, or in fact any of the days following that, until the day of Monday 21st December (please see the timeline below). I am most intrigued by the 8-day period between the 8th and the 16th of December, during which the parcel was "awaiting export documentation". I wonder what this documentation was. I wonder who provided it (I certainly didn't). I wonder if this is code for "Oops. Fiddlesticks. That's the parcel we forgot about". I have visions of the parcel being put down for a minute in the middle of the Parcelforce common room by Not Bolt, who then nips out to use the loo. During his 5-minute absence, I imagine another driver coming in, assuming that the parcel is a coffee table, and covering it with a wide array of chocolate biscuits. Not Bolt returns to the common room a few minutes later, but can't see the parcel for the biscuits, and assumes that it has been returned to the sender due to "insufficient" paperwork. It is then only 8 days later, once all of the biscuits have been consumed, thereby revealing the label of the parcel, that Not Bolt realises what has happened, and sheepishly, covertly forwards it on to the outward Office of Exchange.

Unfortunately, by the time the parcel arrived in San Francisco, my girlfriend had already left for her Christmas holidays, so she didn't actually pick up the parcel until mid-January. But I suppose even I can't blame Parcelforce for that one.

But at least I would be compensated right? And presumably pretty promptly and easily right? Wrong.

I sent in my compensation form to Parcelforce and it arrived with them on the 15th December. I sent it in by post. Honestly. Believe me. Some people do use the internet in England. Just not Parcelforce. In mid-February I received a cheque in the post from Parcelforce by way of compensation. But I had 2 problems with this:

1) It was mid-February. That is, it had taken them 2 months to process my compensation claim. It took England 3 weeks to win the World Cup in 1966. How long does it take to address a claim form? Do they get that many claim forms? (Actually, probably yes.) Does Not Bolt have to run with the claim form from the Parcelforce office in London to the outsourced claims processing centre in remote Nepal because the Parcelforce vans that would normally take it to Nepal have been buried under a mountain of chocolate biscuits? This time I imagine the 3 Parcelforce employees in the "Claims Processing Unit Centre Department" all staring at the claim form. One of them says to the other "Shall we deal with it today?". The other one pulls the lever on the fruit machine in the corner of the office. One cherry…two cherries…(they both stare at the screen in growing anticipation and excitement…)…tangerine. "Insufficient paperwork" flashes up on the screen of the fruit machine. "Nope. Let's play again tomorrow", says the second employee, as they return to updating their Facebook stati.

2) It was for only £15.23. 25% of the £62.89 I had paid. I wasn't too happy about this so on Monday 1st March I rang up Parcelforce to ask if I could get the remaining £47.66 because my parcel would have reached San Francisco faster if I had personally rowed it across the Atlantic:

I rang up Parcelforce. The lady I spoke to told me that I had sent it on Global Priority (a slower service - 3-5 days rather than the "guaranteed" 24 hours of the impossibly-ironically-named Global Express). I said that this might explain a few days between the 8th and the 16th December, but that I thought I had sent it on Global Express. She said she would check the paperwork and get back to me.

Half a day passed. She didn't get back to me.

I rang up Parcelforce again. The next lady I spoke to was more helpful, and got the information in 2 minutes (which begs the question of why the first lady couldn't have done the same thing. But maybe she had looked for the paperwork before the mid-morning chocolate biscuit break). She told me I had sent it on Global Priority. She hung up.

But I was not to be out-smarted. Oh no. I am a stubborn and resilient man when there is £47.66 at stake, and I craftily re-entered the details of the parcel into the Parcelforce online (gasp!) price quotation form. The price of Global Express was £62.89 - exactly what I had paid.

I rang up Parcelforce again. I explained to the third lady that the price I paid corresponded exactly to the Global Express price. And if I was paying £59.19 to send a parcel in 3-5 days, why would I not pay the £3.70 extra to send it within 24 hours ("guaranteed")? She re-checked the records and discovered that I had…

…In fact…

…After all…

…Sent it Global "Express".

She "guaranteed" to send me a cheque for the remaining £47.66. I asked her if I could receive some sort of additional compensation for the gazillions of hours that my relatives and I had spent exchanging pleasantries with Parcelforce employees and enduring the Ride of the Valkyries. Or for the risk to my relationship with my girlfriend that the tardiness of my birthday present had posed. But she said that there was some political upheaval at the moment in Kathmandu, and it might take the claims centre a little longer than usual to get around to processing it. I told her not to worry.

By contrast, let's take a look at Amazon.com.

I sent a cafetiere to my girlfriend via Amazon, which arrived on the 8th December. (I was trying to buy redemption for the absence of the perfume and the picture frame.) Unfortunately it was broken. I sent an e-mail to Amazon on the 9th December explaining the situation.

Within 19 minutes, I had got a response from Amazon saying they were "truly sorry to hear that the item was damaged". And that they would give me a full refund to my Visa card. I think this is outstanding customer service - both because of the promptness of the response, and because they did not even need proof that the cafetiere arrived broken. (By contrast, Parcelforce knew that they had failed on their "guarantee" to deliver the parcel within 24 hours by the time the 336th hour had passed and the parcel was still "arriving in destination country", but they still required a hand-written, posted compensation form and 2 months of processing time to repay me a quarter of the amount I had paid).

At the bottom of my e-mail from the nice man at Amazon, it said: "We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company". And I believed him.

America is great at customer service.

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Year of publication? 1776.

Ring any bells?

That's right.

And so maybe it's excusable. Maybe their military endeavours and heroic struggle for freedom against foreign oppressors distracted the American people from the economic lessons emanating from those same oppressors, and I should therefore exercise leniency in my judgement.

But I am not going to.

In England people don't really file their own taxes. I mean, I think sometimes they do, but generally they don't. I certainly never did In the 27 years that I lived there. In the 27 days that I have lived in America, I have.

I didn't understand the forms. I never understand forms. They use long words like "withholding" and "dependents" and "deductible", the boxes are always too small for you to write your name in (and I'm not even Sri Lankan), and I invariably find that no sooner have I "finished" the form, than I discover that it's invalid because I didn't fill it in in indigo (and if anyone can repeat the letters in four times in a row then I will be inpressed). And these forms were no different. In fact they were harder. It felt not a lot unlike my A-level pure maths exam:

"If you entered 3 in section 127b (iii), enter your average weekly salary as of April 1st in this impossibly small box.

Now subtract your forecasted charitable contributions for May through October (excluding August).

Multiply this number by the number of dependents in your household, but only if you are the supervalidatorian of your household and the number of subordinated beneficiaries in your household does not exceed the number of American automobiles parked in your drive on Tuesdays.

Divide this number by 3650. (And honestly I did not make this one up).

If you did not enter 3 in section 127b (iii), please refill the form in indigo."

And then I find out that these are just the withdrawal forms. Or the withholding forms. Or some long word beginning with w. And the real tax returns are even harder still.

In England, a helpful person in the equivalent of the IRS works out how much you owe, fills in the paperwork for you, and taxes you the right amount.

I don't think I ever grasped the significance of Smith's Division of Labour until I filled in my withstanding forms the other day. It probably took me an hour to understand the forms, and then I probably misunderstood them. And filled them in wrong.

The helpful person in the English IRS would not have had to spend the hour trying to understand the form, and he would have understood it perfectly. And he would have filled it in right. Because this is his job. And he is very good at it. MUCH better than I am.

So here's my suggestion, Mr President. Why not centralise the completion of tax returns? Sure you might have to employ a few helpful people to do it, but I reckon you would save at least as much administrative resource in no longer having to chase up ignorant Englishman who have filled their form in in the wrong colour of ink. And yes you might face some political opposition from people who are willing to trust the Government with national defence, but are unwilling to trust it with their tax returns, but I would not be surprised if that opposition melted away the moment those people realised they would NEVER HAVE TO FILL IN TAX FORMS AGAIN.

And I would be happier.

And Adam Smith would rest more peacefully.

Fair play

I have only been in the country for a few days, but I get the impression that American people don’t like Communism. Senator McCarthy certainly didn’t. But while the chances of my immediate deportation might be significantly increased by the following statement, I think that one of the best things about American sports is their communism.

Now I’m not talking about Bread Lines and Gulags here, but let’s face it, the idea that the team that wins the Super Bowl gets the last draft pick the following year is pretty anathema to the capitalist ideal. And I love it!

In the “EPL” (an acronym that still nauseates me to the core), if you win the league, you get some prize money, you use this to buy better players, and your chances of winning the league again next year go up.

Now I am a Manchester United fan, but even I see the attraction of a system that prevents one team from winning the league in 11 out of the last 17 seasons. And Manchester United is about the most tolerable example of enduring success in English football in the last decade. By which I mean that Alex Ferguson earned it.

When he arrived at the club in 1986, United were not a dominant force in the English game. Sure they had the legacy of Best and the Busby Babes (at which point, those reading this who understand football as a game of four quarters will probably conjure images of Hungarian hat-wearing honeys), but they hadn’t won the league for 20 years, and had even got relegated to the old second division as recently as 1974. Even the most bitter Liverpool fan would have to concede that Ferguson was incredibly astute in the transfer market in the early 1990s (at least before he temporarily lost his mind with the purchases of Kleberson, Jordi Cruyff, and the one-trick wonder). But he bought Peter Schmeichel, Eric Cantona and Roy Keane – arguably the three most influential players in the history of the Premier League, for the combined sum of £5.5m. That’s the same as Leicester paid for Ade Akinbiyi. Ferguson crafted a title-winning team out of nothing, and it is difficult to argue that United’s unprecedented success over the last 20 years has been undeserved, even if the vast majority of Englishmen have found it unpleasant, and even a Manchester United fan like myself might concede that it has been unexciting – or at least undiverse, which might amount to a similar thing (if you believe in “old adages”. Which I do. Even if only because I think adage is a nice word, and therefore adages must be nice things).

And I would add Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal to this category as well. Wenger made some great signings in his early years at Highbury, and Arsenal’s success during his tenure has also been earned, even if it has been less enduring (he added, smugly).

And then there’s Chelsea. Chelsea basically bought their 2005 title with money supplied by a profiteering Russian oiligarch. Which I find a little depressing. And add Manchester City to this category. If they do ever actually break into the top 4 (he added, even more smugly).

But the point is, whether it is “deserved” or bought, success in English football is self-perpetuating.

By contrast, in American sports, “many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first”. Now of course, there are teams that have enjoyed prolonged periods of success – due to great coaching, great players and great fans. And of course there are the Chicago Cubs.

But the NFL system is set up to mitigate against the concentration of power that characterises English football (and Spanish football, and Italian football, etc.) in at least two ways.

Firstly, the team that comes first in the previous year gets the last draft pick in the next year.

And secondly, the schedules for the teams that win their divisions are tougher in the following year.

I think this keeps things interesting, and is a “good thing”.

The number of teams that have won the English Premiership in the 18 years since its inception in 1992? 4. The number of teams who have won the Super Bowl in the same timeframe? 13. The number of different teams that have finished in the top 4 in England in the last 7 years? 5. The number of teams who have reached the NFC and the AFC Championship games in the same timeframe? 20.

I’ll take the American numbers.