Oscar Pistorius

Another blog that I drafted a few months ago, but never got round to publishing until now.


Oscar Pistorius is a South African Paralympian, who recently one three gold medals at the Paralympics in China. He is famous not for this, but for his prosthetic limbs. Born without some of the bones in his legs, Pistorius’ lower legs were amputated at an early age. He now runs with the ‘Cheetah Flex-foot’ and is nicknamed The Blade Runner.
Scientific testing in 2007 revealed that these prosthetics give him advantages over able-bodies athletes, because they require less energy from the body and do not fatigue. Therefore he was prohibited from competing in the able-bodied Olympics in China. At the time there was much debate, and the most convincing argument I heard was something along the lines of:
‘he has no lower legs, so of course he shouldn’t compete in the Olympics. That’s what the Paralympics are for –athletes with body parts missing or not working. In what other sport would a sportsman be allowed to use machinery to aid his performance where others cannot?’
That made a lot of sense to me. Sport is very competitive, and some people, for whatever reason, are not good enough. For some, they have no lower legs. For most, we’re just not good enough – not skilled, strong, quick enough. That’s how sport works! It tells you who is the best at something. If Pistorius is allowed these prosthetic limbs to help him run faster, I should be allowed something to help me go faster. A bike perhaps? Clearly mad. Unfortunately for Oscar, because he has no lower legs, he is not good enough to compete in the Olympics. However, also because he has no lower legs, he is eligible to compete in the Paralympics, more than can be said for me. He should take his opportunity and stop whining.

What is talent?

I originally wrote this in March 2008, but never got round to publishing it. So here it is.


A quote from a discussion on the BBC Sport website, referring to the reigning Snooker Masters and Welsh Open champion Mark Selby:

"He knows he is not better than Ronnie and never will be."

This was said after the Welsh Open final in which Selby beat favourite and provisional world number 1 Ronnie O'Sullivan. After the match, O'Sullivan subtly criticised Selby's slow, tactical style, which contrasts with O'Sullivans pacy breakbuilding.

For a while in Snooker it has been assumed that a slow tactical style is inferior to breakbuilding and is something a player needs to resort to if he can't compete in the so-called 'scoring department' with his opponent. The above quote says that Selby isn't as good as O'Sullivan but what it actually means is that he's not as good a breakbuilder. And that is probably true. But breakbuilding is only one aspect of the game. Tactically, Selby was stronger than O'Sullivan on the day and this made up for his 'deficit' in the breakbuilding, as shown by the fact that he won the match.
Ironically, to win a match of snooker, you still have to outscore your opponent in the majority of frames! So in 9 of the 17 frames, Selby scored more points than O'Sullivan, yet still people ridicule him for not being good in the 'scoring department'. And it's not just Selby, it's Ebdon, Dott and others too. And this is coming from a fan of Stephen Hendry, the greatest breakbuilder ever.

Which brings me to the next point. Hendry is universally hailed as 'the greatest player to ever pick up a cue'. A fair claim I say, as he spent a record eight consecutive years at number 1 in the world rankings, has won the World Snooker Championship a record seven times, and was the youngest World Champion at the age of 21. He has also won the UK Championship, the 2nd biggest in the world, more times than anyone else (5) has won the Masters more times than anyone else (6) and has the most century breaks to his name (approaching 800 I believe). I'd say that constitutes the greatest player ever.

However, many people also claim that O'Sullivan is the most naturally talented player ever. What the heck does that mean? What people mean is that O'Sullivan has won a lot of titles (19, only bettered by Hendry (36) and Steve Davis (28)), but he is inconsistent, temperamental, and often loses confidence or interest. But if he had Hendry's mental game and commitment, he would surely have won more titles than Hendry.
The problem with this argument is that it assumes the whole mental and psychological side of the game doesn't count when labeling natural talent.

To be good at snooker, you have to score more points than your opponent in as many frames as possible. At the end of the day, it's all about getting points on the board. Hendry and Davis have done this more than O'Sullivan. Simple as. Hendry is the greatest because his results show it. Maybe O'Sullivan would have been better if he could hold himself together. But he can't.

People might say here than O'Sullivan's highest standard of play is higher than Hendry's, or that O'Sullivan can also play with his left hand (as though that is relevant). No deal. If you can't judge on results it just becomes subjective.

It seems to me that when labeling natural talent, we should be aware of four types of characteristics in people. One type is purely genetically controlled. Scientists reckon there are only about four of these, including eye colour and blood group. Then there are characteristics that are genetically controlled but are affected by conditions before birth such as the mother's diet. The third type are characteristics that are genetically controlled but are affected by conditions after birth (anything from diet and exercise to personal experiences). The fourth are characteristics the are purely controlled by our environment (i.e. no genetic influence). There are probably very few of these too.
So which of these types of characteristics can be used when defining natural talent? Surely not the last two, as they are influenced by nurture more than or as much as nature. Maybe not even the second, as it is affected by the environment too. Which leaves type one, and I doubt blood group has much influence on Snooker titles. And no-one can do anything about type one anyway, so what's the point in labeling them? "Congratulations, circumstances beyond anyones control have may or may not have caused you to be brilliant at snooker". The point is that it is stupid to label natural talent at all.

I think a much more useful measure of talent is how quickly or easily a person learns to do something. I can spot 'natural' frisbee players because they're the ones who pick the game up quickly, not because they're the ones with blue eyes. What makes someone quick to pick up the game of frisbee is anyones guess. Certainly physical factors such as pace and fitness are important. Probably also spatial awareness and a logical grasp of tactics. But what controls spatial awareness? Men do have a genetic predisposition towards good spatial awareness, but it's a generalisation at best. Certainly blood group and eye colour have no effect on frisbee ability, so whether type 2, 3 or 4 characteristics are involved, or all three, there are definitely non-genetic influences. Some of these influences will be beyond the persons control (e.g. childhood diet) and some will not (adulthood diet!).

Talk of natural talent is stupid. Talent is not 'natural'. It is controlled mainly by environmental (non-genetic) factors, including personal input and hard work. There is such a thing as talent, but it is better thought of as how easily you learn to do something. And, in sport, that includes more than just the physical and technical. Every sportsperson knows that top level sport is played in the head. To be successful in sport you must be good physically, technically and mentally. To some extent, circumstances beyond your control will help you do this easily. Also you must work hard for it.

Talent isn't the only factor influencing success in sport, hard work plays a part too. I don't believe either is enough for success at a high level. But over time, we have seen that Stephen Hendry has by far outperformed anyone else, so if we took a list of, say, the top 100 players of all time, I believe he would be the most talented and the most hardworking, and these combine to produce his results. O'Sullivan might have the best technique (or whatever) but that is not talent. Talent is a lot bigger than that.

Sabio – Escape

I’ve mentioned Sabio in many blogs (here, here, here and here). I think very highly of them. However, I have only 4 friends who’ve heard of them (including 2 siblings) and only 3 who actually like them. This is traumatic for me, because if they had ever released more than 8 songs, they could have been my favourite band ever.
Yes, that’s right – they only released 8 songs. One CD. And yes, it’s that good that if they had produced more, they could be my all-time number one band.

I discovered Sabio at Spring Harvest in about 2003 when they supported Steve. I only remember one song, which may have been called ‘You came down’, and it convinced me to buy the album. The song wasn’t even on the album, but 8 other crackers were.

The album is about being committed to God. It’s an incredibly strong theme, evident from the start of the first song and continuing to the last. The album has a 4x2 structure – four groups of two songs. Two upbeat, pop-rock songs, two alternative, more meandering songs, two heavy rock songs, and two light, piano driven songs. But it doesn’t feel artificial at all – it’s an incredibly honest and vulnerable album.

So, one song at a time…

Meaning of my Life
The album opens with a catchy light-rock song of outright commitment to God with lines like ‘and just like a child, I’m clinging on to you, declaring God as the reason for and purpose of life. It’s quite guitar-focused, but the guitar is light and airy rather than crunchy. Combined with the tight drums this gives the song a bouncy feel which is very easy to listen to. It builds slightly into an anthemic chorus, with a backing choir in places. The lyrics are relentless but creative and cleverly written to give various pictures of absolute dependence on God. After the expected middle eight (which is unfortunately unremarkable), the chorus kicks in again before extending into the outro.

Dreamers of the Day
Musically similar to track one, this song is about being part of God’s plans and dreaming his dreams – ‘we’re still believing that there are greater things to come’. The overall beat is slightly syncopated, and the verses are quite low key with straight chords over the drums. Like the previous track, the music builds into another catchy chorus, though a bit cheesier than before. The middle eight at first seems like a waste, before developing briefly into and punchy and quite aggressive response to God’s work – ‘we’re moving shaking pushing breaking anything that gets in our way’. Dreamers is structured similarly to the opener but is slightly weaker, both musically and lyrically. Still, a very good track nonetheless, with a truly excellent outro that keeps developing right to the end.

Escape
The title track is the first more downbeat song on the album, with most of the song based on atmospheric synths and a wailing guitar, over electronic-sounding drums. The vocals are outstanding here, and the lyrics very deep – ‘I’m feeling like a poet, silences by his brokenness, by his broken hands’. The chorus is very short ‘let me escape again, let me escape’, but later is repeated several times. Verses two and three follow a similar theme to the first – of struggle and wanting to get out, continually getting ever so slightly heavier into the third chorus, which develops from ‘let me escape’ to ‘you are my escape’ and also changes the melody. The middle eight aches of almost despair and features some lyrics in another language (possibly Aramaic?), and then the music explodes for the final choruses, fully declaring God as the place to escape from the world.

Control
The second downbeat song is based on Matthew chapter 6 ‘and if you feed the birds of the skies, how much more will you take care of me’. It’s a simple song about trusting in God’s provision and sufficiency. It’s mostly acoustic, and doesn’t explode in quite the manner of Escape, but has some beautiful imagery such as ‘when I can’t find the song, my rhythm broken and gone, your melody will comfort me’. The title comes fro the phrase ‘you are in control of me’, part of the chorus that features Matthew 6. The middle eight extends into the outro, focusing on the idea of safety in God. This is yet another unashamed song of dedication to God.

Money Makers
Track 5 opens in a very different style – crunchy guitars and rocky drums. It’s a song about the futitliyty of working for money ‘you’re working for the weekend to fit in with the circling’. The song doesn’t let anyone get away with it however, claiming that everyone has been sucked into the ‘money-makers game’. The music stays fairly upbeat and rocky, with the lead guitar giving most of the variety, especially in the second verse. It’s not a particularly new thing to sing about, but Sabio to it cleverly and amusingly, with lines like ‘you see you work to get the money to get the food to get the strength to go to work to get the money, to fit in with this game’. It’s a solid song, and a good buildup for one of my all time favourite songs.

Mother
Mother picks up the theme of Escape, and discusses in more detail the mess that the world is in. The verses focus on the problems with technology, education, money, celebrity culture, popular music, politics, natural disasters, starvation, capitalism, selfishness and materialism. The chorus, in contrast, both wonders about and declares the existence of a place to Escape. The place is ‘Mother’ a symbol for God – who gives the escape, comfort and security needed in such a messed up world. The second verse finishes with the chilling and inspiring line ‘materialism builds a wall that blocks the cry that comes from the poor - is there a generation that will smash it to the floor in these days?’ The music itself is fast, heavy and rocky, and the melody is uplifting, despite the desperate things being sung about. The best word to describe it all is ‘intense’ – it’s relentlessly driving music, except for the third verse, where everything except for the vocals and a few piano chords are stripped away, highlighting the lyrics that summarise the song ‘spinning, twisting, turning, the world is falling on its face today. This world needs a place it can escape, oh my mother, would you open Heaven’s gates?’. The music then crashes back into an immense guitar solo, before the outro focuses on the response of dedicating life to God – the overall theme of the album.

Frozen
This is a song that makes me weep at its beauty. It’s quite a despairing song about the fear of being left alone, but deep, firm commitment to God in all situations. It’s much lighter than the previous two tracks, being driven by the piano with acoustic guitar and drums as accompaniment, which fits perfectly with its melancholic message. The lyrics are truly desperate ‘after all we’ve been through I can’t even recognise your face’, ‘whatever happened to the dreams you let me dream?’, but the song culminates with an inspirational promise ‘no matter how far away, I’m till gonna follow you, no matter how long the day, I still believe’. The music is nothing outstanding, but is the perfect platform for some of the greatest lyrics I have ever heard.

Carry Me
Another lighter track to finish the album, Carry Me sums up the themes of the previous seven songs, but rather than being about dedication to God, it’s about God’s dedication to us ‘you’ve always carried me’. It’s a very simple song, the lyrics declaring God’s outrageous faithfulness, while the music balances the album perfectly, in between the delicate Frozen and Control, the hugeness of Mother, and the accessibility of Meaning of my life. It’s a lovely ending because it brings the focus right back onto God, rather than our struggles, and at nearly six minutes it still allows for the epicness that is a feature of this album.

Tracks 1 and 4?

Recently a friend of mine claimed that the strongest tracks on an album tend to be tracks 1 and 4. Not every time of course, but a general trend. I immediately disagreed, thinking that 1 is usually strong but 4 is not. I reckoned that track 3 was more likely to be in the top two songs on an album.

I did some analysis on this. I looked at every album that I am confident enough to pick the best two songs from (i.e. I had to know the whole album well). Here are the numbers of times that each track appears in the best two on an album:

Track 1 – 55
Track 2 – 23
Track 3 – 31
Track 4 – 20
Track 5 – 19
Track 6 – 23
Track 7 – 17
Track 8 – 10
Track 9 – 3
Track 10 – 9
Track 11 – 6
Track 12 – 6
Track 13 – 2

Track 1 tends to be strongest, followed by 3. I rest my case.

However, there is something much more revealing about these numbers. Just look at the decline after track 7.
I have a theory that what makes something a truly brilliant album is a very strong last third. Most albums lack this, as partly indicated by these results.
Loads and loads of albums start well, but after the first 4 or 5 tracks (once the singles are used up!), they decline. The best albums do not decline, they maintain the high standard.

Playlist

I have a playlist that includes all my favourite songs, except for:
- Congregational worship
- Soundtracks
- Classical
- Sigur Ros

Recently this playlist broke through the 500 songs mark (as of 20th January 2009 there are 513), and I decided to find out how many there are by each artist. Here are the interesting results:

34 - Delirious
24 - Idlewild
21 - Lifehouse
18 - British Sea Power
17 - Coldplay
16 - Anberlin, U2
13 - Mew
12 - Enya, Live, Oasis, Strangeday
11 - Muse, World Wide Message Tribe
10 - Bloc Party, Killers, Feeder
9 - Easyworld, Editors
8 - DC Talk, RHCP
7 - Counting Crows, Linkin Park, Maire Brennan
6 - Bluetree, Casting Crowns, Dido, Kato, Sixpence NTR, Steve, Travis
5 - Manic Street Preachers, Rock’n’roll Worship Circus, Sabio, Santiago, Stellastarr*
4 - Athlete, Bottlerockit, Dire Straits, Greenday, Jars of Clay, Kaiser Chiefs, Quench, REM, Stereophonics, Tait
3 - 3 Doors Down, Ash, Barlow Girl, Billy Joel, Doves, Evanescence, Falling Up, Franz Ferdinand, Libertines, Queen
2 - Caedmon’s Call, The Calling, Embrace, The Flaming Lips, Foo Fighters, The Gentlemen, Goo Goo Dolls, Keane, The Kissaway Trail, Maroon 5, Matchbox 20, Nickleback, Snow Patrol, Third Day, The Verve
1 - Alien Ant Farm, Aphron, Blink 182, Blur, The Bravery, Cathy Burton, David Crowder Band, Eiffel 65, Eminem, The Feeling, Five for Fighting, The Fray, Focus, Good Charlotte, Haven, Hoobastank, Jennifer Knapp, Justin Thomas, Lostprophets, Nirvana, No Doubt, Radiohead, Rebecca St James, Roddy Woomble, Rufus Wainwright, Skillet, Starsailor, Supergrass, Tobymac, Toploader, Vertical Horizon, The Yearning, Yfriday

Delirious were always going to be top – they are one of my favourite bands and have produced a huge amount of music. Idlewild, Lifehouse and BSP are also in my ‘elite’ group of bands. Interestingly, the 5th band in my elite, Mew, are slightly lower down with 13 songs – but they are superceded by Coldplay, Anberlin and U2, all of whom have produced at least 4 albums to Mew’s 3. In addition, the brilliance of Mew’s ‘And The Glass Handed Kites’ album is partly due to it being 14 tracks blended into 1, which makes it hard to pick out specific tracks to go in such a ‘favourites’ playlist.

The other usual suspects are up there – I really love all the bands with between 8 and 12 songs.

Reading lower down shows several categories of bands, including:
Great bands who only ever produced one album (grrr to Quench, Steve and Sabio!)
Bands who I quite like, but only to the extent of getting their greatest hits album (e.g. Manics, Counting Crows, REM)
Up-and-coming bands who haven’t produced much music yet (e.g. Bluetree)

Right near the bottom come the one-hit and two-hit wonders – classics like Snow Patrol and Five For Fighting.

Overall, I think this list gives a pretty good impression of my music taste, providing you remember that I also like Sigur Ros and a lot of worship music.

Prizes (of love) to anyone who can select an artist and correctly name the songs that I have on the playlist. More love available if you pick an artist with lots of songs, but if you get just one wrong, you get no love.

Ten albums I am excited to have discovered in 2008

Last night I was asked what is the best album I have discovered in the last 3 months. This got me thinking about my favourite albums of 2008.
I don’t have time to rank these, so, in alphabetical order by artist, ten albums I am glad to have discovered in the last year (they weren’t all released in the last year):

Anberlin – Cities
Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City
Bluetree – Greater Things
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Coldplay – Viva la Vida
Delirious – Kingdom of Comfort
Heat – Can I See Heaven?
Killers – Sam’s Town
Rock’n’roll Worship Circus – A Beautiful Glow
Stellastarr* - Harmonies for the Haunted

A grateful blog

On the wall above my desk I have photos of nine people. These are nine people to whom I feel immensely in debt because of what they have done for me and given me, and just for their love, friendship and guidance.
There are my parents, my old youth leader, two people from my internship year, and four of my best friends.
I put these photos up a few months ago.

This morning I realise that, after thinking about this for literally about one minute:
I could have included three more people as well as my youth leader for the encouragement they have given me, the opportunities they have given me, and the amount they have invested in me.
In slightly different circumstances, there could have been eight more friends up there - friends who I know would have been just as good to me had I needed it at the time.
There are at least another four friends who I know would be there now if I needed them.

I am insanely lucky to have the friends I do. I'm not just talking about mates who I get on well with, even mates who I can go to for help when I need it - I'm talking about real, deep, hardcore friendships. Not transient friends who are around for a while, help you out once maybe, but then you realise they're not that important. But people who have proved themselves, and who can be trusted to do it again.

Some of these people will know who they are, some won't have a clue. But thankyou, to all of you. I don't deserve you.

Heat - Can I See Heaven?

Heat are a smallish worship band who, as far as I know, are still together. I saw them at Spring Harvest about 8 years ago and got their EP 'Can I See Heaven?'
For the last 8 years or so I've listened to the album every now and then, but in the last week I've realised how good it is. Only seven tracks, but all of them are beautifully put together. The general theme is prayer - crying to God for what we want to see in the world and in our own lives. The lyrics are fairly simple, but heartfelt and passionate. I don't know what the rest of Heat's music is like, but I expect this album to, 8 years belatedly, become one of my albums of the year.

Isn't is strange how this can happen - you listen to an album for years before realising how good it is.

For me, this has also happened with:
DCTalk - Jesus Freak
Killers - Sam's Town
RHCP - Californication
Sixpence NTR - Divine Discontent
Various Artists - Hungry

I expect there are more to come.