Happy Third Anniversary

Three years ago today, I started my blog.  I want to thank all of my occasional readers for their continued occasional reading.  Given how rarely I post these days, I cannot have anything but occasional readers.

Unfortunately, for my blog, but not otherwise, my lawyer business has picked up in the last three years so that I now can obtain more work than I can actually do.  I am trying to have just as much work as I can actually do, but it is not always possible to fine tune things that way.  Either way, I now spend less time blogging, reading, watching tv, and playing computer games.  Instead, I spend more time working. 

The biggest development in my life over the last year is that I went on the Eat to Live diet.  My weight, which was as high as 342.2 pounds (I don’t know what that is in stones or kilograms) was down to 233.4 pounds this morning.  I am hoping to lose another 19 pounds or so but there has been very little weight loss in the past three months even though I have continued to follow the diet.  Possibly, I am at the weight my body feels is appropriate for me even while eating a low carbohydrate, low calorie, very healthy diet.  Or maybe I should start exercising too. 

I do have a couple of articles in the works which I hope to post soon.  One of them is tentatively titled “Why are Southampton Fans Stupid?”  I will probably use a different title.  I keep delaying it hoping for clarity on the Virgil van Dijk situation but, perhaps, that makes me stupid.  I should probably just go ahead and publish it and risk being wrong in a few days. 

The strangest blog related development in the past year was the sudden and inexplicable popularity of my blog in Russia.  Last November, I suddenly got a large number of hits from Russia.  Initially, I thought may be Russians were interested in my predictions for who would win Premier League games because they want to gamble.  Then I came to my senses and realized that no one would be putting money on my predictions.  Nevertheless, in November and December of this year I had approximately 1500 page hits—nearly all of them from Russia.  Since then I have continued to have intermittent periods of significant hits from Russia.  For example, in April, a month in which I posted absolutely nothing, I had over 2000 page hits nearly all of them from Russia.  This month, I have had 966 page hits.  Around half of them occurred following my last blog “A Modest Proposal (re Virgil van Dijk)” on July 2.  Nearly all the other hits were from Russia mostly coming on July 3 and July 23.

If anyone can explain why my blog has intermittent, unexplained popularity in Russia, I would greatly appreciate it.  I am just hoping it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.  Please feel free to post a comment here.

I continue to enjoy being a fan of Southampton FC and maintain a cautious level of optimism about the upcoming season.  I believe the squad, as it is, will be significantly better than last year but I am not confident that we will get into Europe unless a couple of the teams ahead of us have really bad years.  Of course, that is always possible as we saw two years ago.  

Last year I predicted that we would have an improved season, which I defined as getting a higher point total, finishing 5^th or higher, reaching the knock out phase of the Europa League and finishing 10^th or better, or winning a trophy while avoiding relegation.  While we came so very close, it turned out I was wrong.

This year I make the same prediction.  We will improve which I define as finishing with more points, in 7^th place, or winning a trophy, but not get relegated.

A Modest Proposal (re Virgil van Dijk)

It is a melancholy object to me, and other fans of Southampton FC without inside knowledge of the club, this problem we are having with Virgil van Dijk.   Instead of working for his honest livelihood with us, he appears convinced, as are his agent and Liverpool, that we simply must sell him to Liverpool this summer.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this problem is exacerbated by our club’s tendency to conduct its transfer business privately as much as possible.  This has led to the present deplorable state of our club’s transfer window.

I have turned my thoughts for many days to this problem and I have devised a scheme which I believe will answer our purpose.

The club should pick a fine charity.  I personally, living as I do in San Luis Obispo, California, am in no position to pick an appropriate Southampton or English charity—although I do believe picking a Liverpool charity would add an interesting touch to the transaction.   However, if any one cares I would suggest the Freedom From Religion Foundation.  It is a fine group serving a worthy cause.

The club should go to the selected charity and make them an offer:  a binding agreement that if the club transfers van Dijk to Liverpool, the club must pay that charity an immediate 100 million pounds.  Since that payment would be, of course, out of the question, the transfer would be blocked by a binding contract.  This scheme could be fine-tuned as necessary to make it more fit for purpose.  Possibly the contract should cover any sale of van Dijk to Liverpool in the next five years.  Surely, it should prohibit any transfer to Liverpool through another club—in much the same way our deal for Cedric makes it very expensive to sell him back to another club in Portugal.  If we are truly determined to keep him this season, the contract could cover transferring van Dijk to any club this summer--or ever.

But I have too long digressed.  Perhaps we should just eat him.