Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Bye for Now


It has been almost a month since my last post and the long-planned slowing-down of this blog has appeared to have been realised. Many people have probably given up on it by now and one or two readers have made queries in person about it so apologies to all for not having signed off in a more graceful way before now. As I had said before the blog, originally started to give me something to write about, has since become a distraction, as has the Internet itself. So, taking advantage of a fortuitous boredom with the WorldWideWeb I have decided to put Underachievement to one side for some time. This is not to say that this is the end of the blog - I will certainly be posting before the end of the year - but such posts will be sporadic. Those smart readers that subscribe to RSS feeds will know when there is life here again.

Such disillusion is not uncommon among bloggers - Sinéad Gleeson, for example put here excellent blog on hold for almost a year - and I may be returning permanently to the fold in the future. But for the moment blogging is not a priority, whereas other writing is, and I will be trying to capitalise on the freedom from posting to do that. The signs were surely there when most of the posts over the past couple of months have been about football and film, the two subjects I find easiest to write about. So, I guess my heart was no longer in it.

Not that I have been lacking in things to enthuse about, such as Anton Corbijn's magnificent Ian Curtis biopic Control, the brilliant novels of the Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes, whom I have only recently discovered, and a trip I took to Lisbon last week, which I thoroughly enjoyed and which allowed me to watch two excellent matches: Shaktiar Donetsk's 1-0 defeat of Benfica at the Estadio da Luz and Bayern Munich's slick 2-0 victory over a gallant Belenenses side in the UEFA Cup. Of course, while watching the Benfica-Shaktiar game, I missed the dramatic incidents in the other game in that group, where Celtic gained a thrilling 2-1 victory over Milan, only for the result to be put in doubt by Robert McHendry's idiotic antics after Scott McDonald's winning goal. My thoughts were however more on a more famous Celtic win over a Milanese club, that of the 25th of May 1967 when Jock Stein's bhoys beat Inter to take the Champions' Cup. I visited the Estadio Nacional Jamor (pictured) a beautiful, if by now impractical arena a few miles west of Lisbon, where the match took place. It has hardly changed since the day it hosted its biggest ever match (the only time it's ever used these days is for the Portuguese Cup final every year). Here's a snippet of the famous match, where Celtic's champagne football deservedly conquered the sterile negativity of Helenio Herrara's team. Like most football videos posted on YouTube it is marred by an awful soundtrack but it can still bring a tear to your eyes. Best of luck everyone, I'll be back again sometime.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

farewell seanachie, dont be a total stranger...

Anonymous said...

Haste ye back Seanachie!

Hail!Hail!

Donagh said...

I was actually worried when my RSS feed to Pleasures had remained unbolded for so long. You managed a terrific output young man. The catalogue of stuff you wrote about so well extended far beyond film and football. I'm glad my fears were unfounded and as I said when Sinead signed off, hope to see you back blogging sometime. Good too that you putting your energy into something useful. Blogging's a mug's game :)

Lina said...

What a shame Seanachie... I guess I'll dig into the previous posts which I never got time to read since I only discovered you recently. Good luck with whatever you do.

PS I'll keep posting my ponderings in the meantime so if you have time pls stop by

Anonymous said...

That's the thing when you blog in a more substantial way as opposed to the odd snippet here and there. It's hard to find time.

Concentrate on other things and throw us a bone every now and then.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

If it's any consolation I made this my Post of the Week, in honour of your blogging out.

She Python said...

what can i say about soccer... i hate this word... soccer... its futebol!!!!!!
i know when its penalty, and my futebol team won last end week... and we are back to the first division in brazil... i dont know why i am talking to u about this... anyway...
i saw all this posts about futebol... and i love go to stadium saw a good game...
blablablablabla... if u can back... but the real life its much better them virtual... i almost close my blog twice this year...
bye... but sometimes i dont know what is real or virtual in real life...

Anonymous said...

I just found your blog and it is a pity you decided to move on to other things as you have a good style of writing and the content you have provided is good.