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Championship merry-go-round

There have been three managerial changes in the Premier League this season, two of which were rather puzzling (Southampton sack Nigel Adkins and name Mauricio Pochettino as manager  Rafael Benitez replaces Roberto Di Matteo as Chelsea manager), and one rather less so (Mark Hughes sacked as Queens Park Rangers manager), but there have been far  more in the Championship. 

Steve Kean was the first casualty of the season, saying that he had been “forced to resign” as manager of Blackburn Rovers.  It seemed an odd time to get rid of him, but this week he had to pay “substantial” damages to Sam Allardyce after he was caught on video (in a bar in Hong Kong) saying that "Big Sam" had been sacked because he was a crook.  Blackburn decided that after one inexperienced manager had failed, what they needed was someone with six years of managerial experience in, er, Norway - former player Henning Berg.

Then Bolton sacked Owen Coyle and appointed Dougie Freedman from Crystal Palace, who in turn recruited Ian Holloway from Blackpool, creating another vacancy, which was filled by appointing Michael Appleton (from struggling Portsmouth). 

So what happened next?  Henning Berg, was sacked after only 57 days, and Michael Appleton become Blackburn’s third manager of the season.  Yes, that’s the same Michael Appleton who had joined Blackpool just 65 days earlier.  He said that he made the move because Blackburn “is a club that is steeped in history”  and “the ambition of owners Venky's persuaded him to join.”   That’s Indian poultry giant Venky's, and their global adviser Shebby Singh (former pundit on ESPN Star Sports).

But Michael Appleton hasn’t had as many managerial positions as Sean O'Driscoll.  In the summer he quit his coaching role at Nottingham Forest to become  manager of Crawley Town (newly promoted from League Two to League One), but almost immediately turned round and headed back to Nottingham Forest as the replacement for Steve Cotterill.  That lasted until 26th December when he was sacked (to be replaced by Alex McLeish*).  However, he didn’t have long to wait before starting his fourth job of the season, at Bristol City, as replacement for Derek McInnes, who was sacked on 12th January.

* Yes, Alex McLeish who had failed at Birmingham and Aston Villa.  No, I don’t understand it, either.

In other Norwegian manager news, Stale Solbakken managed to survive for just over six months at Wolverhampton Wanderers before being sacked on 5th January and replaced by Dean Saunders.

It’s less surprising when a club at the bottom of the league fires their manager: Paul Jewell left Ipswich Town “by mutual consent”  and they appointed Mick McCarthy, who had a distinctly uneven start - his first six matches included three wins, one draw, and two heavy defeats (5-0 and 6-0), but they are now out of the relegation zone. 

Barnsley sacked Keith Hill just after Christmas when they were bottom of the table and replaced him with David Flitcroft. 

That’s 11 changes out of 24 clubs in just over half a season.

LinkedIn endorsed for being annoying

LinkedIn is the “professional” equivalent of Facebook, and - up until recently - rather less annoying.  Yes, there are some people who try to use it to promote their company’s services, and, no, I really don’t need to know about tiny changes to my contacts’ CVs, but I can ignore most of that.

It also offers some small amusement value.  Do people ever add more skills to their profile except when they are looking for a new job? 

But now it appears that LinkedIn are determined to test their users’ patience.  They have a shiny new feature that allows people to endorse each other for the skills they are claiming on their profiles.  In the last few weeks I have been endorsed for several skills that I don’t have, by people who know next to nothing about my real-life experience.  I’ve also been endorsed for expertise I did once have, but which is no longer relevant, again sometimes by people who are not qualified to judge.

Recommendations are a different matter, because you actually have to write some words (and describe your working relationship with the person you are recommending).  However, it’s not unusual for two people to recommend each other, which makes them meaningless.

But endorsing someone is as easy as clicking a button, and it is almost impossible to verify whether it has any value. So why would any potential employer take any notice?   John Naughton has a theory about this:

LinkedIn endorsements turn you into the product

John Naughton | The Observer |  Sunday 30 December 2012

Recently, baffling emails from LinkedIn began to trickle into my inbox informing me that so-and-so had "endorsed" me. What it meant, apparently, is that so-and-so had affirmed that I do indeed possess the skills that my profile claims I have. Not having asked anyone for such endorsement, I was initially perplexed.

Then the trickle turned into a steady stream. It seemed that everyone on my contact list had, somehow, been badgered into confirming that my online CV wasn't fraudulent. I began to feel like some kind of electronic mendicant, trespassing on the goodwill of friends and colleagues alike. Finally, I became really irritated by the presumption of a service that, in an idiotic attempt to drum up activity, had been annoying people into effectively giving me a reference that I do not need.

It turns out that I'm not the only person to be annoyed by LinkedIn's gambit. As my colleague Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser acidly observed in a lovely blog post: "Frankly, I wouldn't, in the first place, link to anyone I thought was likely to lie on their CV. I'm old-fashioned enough to remember the days when a LinkedIn connection was meant to imply some sort of endorsement in itself."

Interestingly, it turns out that one can "endorse" people for skills that they never knew they had. "I never listed any on my LinkedIn page," writes Stafford-Fraser, "until some kind friend said I was awfully good at 'architecture', which I assume they meant in the sense of 'computer systems architecture', but, who knows, perhaps they had seen my old garden shed modifications? Hoping for some interesting job offers from that one."

In a neat postmodern joke, Stafford-Fraser then added "LinkedIn endorsing" to his list of skills and was gratified to find that several contacts had generously endorsed his skills in that field. "So maybe," he mused, "by way of bringing a little festive cheer, I should be endorsing their LinkedIn-endorsing-endorsing?"

Touche! What obviously lies behind LinkedIn's fatuous wheeze is an attempt to drum up page visits to its site. Each endorsement email is clearly designed to trigger a site visit by the gratified recipient, where he or she is invited to add the unsolicited endorsements to their profile. In the end, therefore, LinkedIn merely confirms once again the first law ofinternet services: if they're free, then you are the product. So here's a new year resolution for all netizens: try paying for online services and rediscover the liberation of being the customer who is always right.

I think they mean “pore”

Headline in the sub-Standard: Chan poised to pour over MPF fees

Flawed views

He won’t give up, will he?

Former lawmaker has flawed views on local education

South China Morning Post | Tuesday, 23 October, 2012

Cheung Man-kwong, a former lawmaker experienced in politicking for "democracy" and a local teachers' union, shows his true colours in the SCMP debate on public subvention for the English Schools Foundation (October 15).

He counsels that as "we have given the ESF a lot of subsidies and land in very good locations for the building of its schools" it should "serve the people it is supposed to serve". Whom is ESF supposed to serve?  It is mandated to serve, without racial or religious discrimination, children "who are able to benefit" from "a modern liberal education through the medium of the English language".

However, Mr Cheung defies this fair statutory provision and asserts that ESF should serve preferentially "the children of foreign nationals working in Hong Kong, or non-Chinese residents". He advocates foreigners' exclusive entitlement to subsidised international education, and objects to international schools' admission of "local children who can go to [Direct Subsidy Scheme] DSS schools" which "are intended to serve locals".

He alleges that local and international schools offer different curricula to prepare students for different examinations, without explaining why they differ. In fact, local and international schools are comparable, and the results of different public exams are recognised by foreign and local universities for common admission purposes.

Local students prefer international education because the public exams taken by international schools are easier in content and grading compared with local exams. In 2008, Britain's National Recognition Information Centre rectified the unfairness and recognised that a Hong Kong C grade was equivalent to a British A. When Mr Cheung represented the education profession in the legislature, he was complicit in the injustice of making local exams unnecessarily harsh.

Does Pierce Lam really believe that if he repeats this often enough it will become true?  It’s parents who make the decisions, and they do NOT choose international schools because exams are easier.  Anyway, ESF schools use IGSCE exams rather than the oft-criticized UK GSCEs and the IB Diploma rather than A levels. 

I can’t find any published statement from Britain's National Recognition Information Centre comparing Hong Kong examinations with UK exams, but Pierce doesn’t tell us which exams are being compared - and I doubt that it is an IGCSE.   

He rails against international schools' long waiting lists, which reflect great local demand for international education, but he also incongruously asserts that "the public will be upset to see international schools built for locals".

Mr Cheung treats local students as captive customers to support local teachers' employment. He wants difficult exams to give local education the appearance of a high standard and needs stringent grading to facilitate allocation of local universities' limited places. His crony democracy renders him unable to consider measures to raise local teachers' standards. He is blind to the need for fair competition in education.

Pierce Lam, Central

Back in February the very same Pierce Lam was apparently defending local schools (it’s often hard to tell what point he is trying to make, but the SCMP sub-editor titled his missive “In defence of the local system”), yet he is now claiming that Cheung Man-kwong “wants difficult exams to give local education the appearance of a high standard.” 

I am fascinated by the concept of “fair competition in education” and look forward to hearing more about that.

Books I haven’t read

How many Booker Prize winning books do you own?  How many have you actually read?

I can’t be the only person who buys them and then either gives up after a few pages or never quite gets round to even starting them.

I started reading Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang (which won in 2001) but found it intensely annoying, and I also hated Tim Parks’ Europa (which was shortlisted in 1997), though I greatly enjoyed his later Dreams of Rivers and Seas, which wasn’t nominated, and also his non-fiction.

I bought the hardback of Graham Swift’s Last Orders (winner in 1996) because I had read and enjoyed several of his earlier works, but somehow I haven’t got round to this one.

I nearly bought Yann Martel’s Life of Pi for my Kindle when it was reduced to 99 cents at the end of last year (as the Kindle Deal of the Day), but it wasn’t available for customers in Asia Pacific.  It turned out that I had bought the paperback and not read it.  So I did read it, and very good it was too.  There’s a film coming out soon.

I have a paperback copy of last year’s winner (Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending) but I haven’t read that either.

But I have read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall which won in 2009. I even bought the sequel Bring up the bodies before it was nominated, and this week it was announced that it has won the Booker Prize.  Success.

Hit and Run

Some interesting discussion at Ulaca about the Lamma Ferry accident:

Ferry Accident Raises Ethical Issues

Besides the obvious safety issues raised by Monday’s collision between two ferries which resulted in at least 38 deaths, coverage of the accident has raised ethical concerns both journalistic and ferry industry-related.

To take Wednesday’s South China Morning Post’s extensive analysis of the disaster first, journalists appear to have taken a prejudiced stance in their reportage, referring twice to one vessel (in each case the Sea Smooth operated by Hong Kong and Kowloon Ferries) crashing into the other (in each case the Lamma IV operated by Hongkong Electric).

A reporter called Lo Wei sets the tone on the front page with his or her piece about one of the families travelling on the Lamma IV (the Hongkong Electric boat). Lo writes “They had just settled in to enjoy the outing when a ferry crashed into their vessel.”

Then, on page 2, Alex Lo and Amy Nip get only as far as their second paragraph before they write “barely ten minutes after they had left Lamma Island, the vessel owned by Hongkong Electric would be struck by a ferry, causing its stern to sink”.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that the previous day’s SCMP had carried an article headlined “38 die in Hong Kong ferry disaster”, credited to staff reporters, in which Hongkong Electric’s Director of Operations, Yuen Sui See, was quoted as saying, without proffering any evidence for his assertion, "The ferry rammed the side of our boat. They didn't bother and just left".

Read the full posting and comments over at Ulaca (link above).

That can’t be correct…

I’m always on the lookout for places to buy books at reasonable prices and  Fishpond.com.hk has some eye-catching discounts.  But hang on…

They claim that the RRP for The Second World War by Antony Beevor is HK$496 (US$64).  Eh?  I don’t think so.

• The US list price is actually $35 and Amazon.com are offering it for less than $20.
• The UK list price is £25.00 ($40.00) but Amazon.co.uk are offering it for £12.46, or you can buy it from Book Depository for £20.70 with free delivery.

So, the price of HK$234 (US$30.20, £18.60) is cheaper than Book Depository, but it is nothing like a 53% discount.

So where does that RRP of nearly HK$500 come from?  Hong Kong book shops tend to add 20% to the official price, but that only brings us to around HK$325. 

SCMP gets smaller, headlines get worse

Headline in today’s SCMP: “Where’s big picture”.   Me not sure.

Yes, the SCMP did get smaller, but only marginally, and yes they did finally sort out the ghastly design of the TV page.

In slightly more encouraging news, they have re-designed their horrible website and the mobile version has re-appeared after a lengthy absence

Hong Kong Airlines follows Oasis out of Gatwick

Not a big surprise.  It was an interesting concept, but the combination of being known as a budget airline (and one that is owned by a PRC company) and flying to Gatwick (rather than Heathrow) appears not to have been a winner.  

Hong Kong Airlines abandons Gatwick

London's business-class-only link to Hong Kong is to be axed after just six months – providing more evidence that insufficient numbers of airline passengers are prepared to pay a premium to avoid the riff-raff.

Hong Kong Airlines launched the luxury flight from Gatwick in March. But this week the company said flights would end on 10 September. A statement blamed "the continuing weak economic outlook in Europe". In recent weeks, many flights on the route have been cancelled.

The aviation consultant, John Strickland, said: "It reflects the highly competitive nature of the Hong Kong-London market, one where there is substantial capacity from established players and not enough premium traffic to support the dedicated business service of a newcomer."

Cathay Pacific alone has four flights a day each way between Heathrow and Hong Kong, offering business travellers flexibility. It competes with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand from Heathrow, a route with two million passengers annually.

Hong Kong Airlines' service was launched with much fanfare in March, using new Airbus A330 aircraft configured with just 112 seats – 78 in "Club Classic", roughly between premium economy and business, and 34 in "Club Premier", with lie-flat beds.

Fares were set to undercut rival carriers, at less than £2,000 for the cheaper class and £3,000 for the top grade. But many seats have flown empty, and the schedule obliges an aircraft to stand idle on the ground at Gatwick for 15 hours between arrival and departure.

This was the same problem Oasis had, of course. 

It is the second time a Gatwick-Hong Kong venture has failed; Oasis Hong Kong Airlines went bust four years ago after flying the route from Sussex to the Far East for 18 months. But unlike Oasis, Hong Kong Airlines is still very mch a going concern, and no passenger with a forward booking will lose out. They will either be rebooked on Air New Zealand, BA or Virgin, or given a full refund. Juliette White, from Jersey, is booked to fly with Hong Kong Airlines from Gatwick in October. She said: "I'm hoping for a replacement ticket on another airline. I do not see me getting a business-class flight as cheaply if I have to rebook."

Yang Jian Hong, president of Hong Kong Airlines, said: "Our plan is to re-deploy the three specially equipped, all-business-class A330s which currently service the London route to charter flights."

The crazy world of Kindle e-books

The price of Kindle books continues to baffle.  There are plenty of bargains, but an equal number of titles that seem hugely over-priced.

If you want to know when the prices do drop, then eReaderIQ is a useful service.  You enter the Amazon ASIN code and either a target price or a price drop and they will send you an email notification.

What I find baffling is that so many of the titles on my list have gone up in price, often quite significantly:

Both of Emma Kennedy’s books have fallen in price but haven’t yet reached the rather arbitrary price target I set.

After watching “The Iron Lady” on a plane, I snapped up “The Downing Street Years” for a very reasonable $3.59 (plus $2 surcharge) but baulked at paying $4.49 for the companion volume. It then more than doubled in price and has now reached the giddy heights of $12.99, so I guess I’m going to have to wait for that pleasure.

I’m fairly sure that I don’t need to read Hank Paulson’s self-serving account of the financial crisis, but if it gets cheap enough I suppose I will be tempted.  No sign of that happening, though.

I purchased the second volume of Chris Evans’s autobiography and enjoyed so it, so I put the first volume on price watch, but it has increased since then.  As has Frank Skinner’s autobiography. 

Peter Hennessy’s “Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties” did drop $2.00 (to $7.99) but the current price is a rather off-putting $15.39.  Strangely, the companion volume about the immediate post-war period increased by $2 at the same time as the first price drop, only to return to $9.99 about a month later.

I have also purchased several titles in paperback because they are cheaper that way – such as Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies ($15.90 on Kindle) and Claire Tomalin’s Dickens biography (a scarcely believable $21.99).