Plenty of Nothing

2013-14 Scottish Cup, Round Four

Faith, Hope and Charity returned to Inverness in 2011 after a lengthy residence in the Orkneys.

Morton travel to Inverness today for a Scottish Cup Fourth Round encounter with Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

These two clubs last met February 5th, 2011, in the Fifth Round of that year's Scottish Cup. ICT won 5 - 1. ICT also knocked Morton out of the Third Round of the 2008-09 Scottish League Cup. The two clubs have played together in the First Division three seasons, 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2009-10, ICT winning 9 of 12 games. The last time Morton beat Inverness at all was thirteen years ago last week.

Inverness have been swapping second and third place with Aberdeen in the Premiership, and appear to be bound for European competition next year. So a Morton win today would come close to the thrill of knocking Celtic out of the League Cup in September. A draw would necessitate a replay at Cappielow in the coming weeks. A loss would make this Morton's briefest Scottish Cup run since 2008-09, when Peterhead knocked them out.

Which club has eliminated Morton from the Scottish Cup most often? Rangers. Which SPFL clubs have never eliminated Morton from the Scottish Cup? Ross County, Dumbarton, Cowdenbeath, Brechin, Annan, Elgin, Berwick, Albion Rovers.

By strange coincidence both teams are playing under interim managers. Terry Butcher, Caley's manager since 2009, signed a three year deal with Hibernian three weeks ago, counterintuitively jumping from the top to the bottom half of the Premiership. Morton, having sacked Allan Moore after last week's 5 - 1 thumping by Livingston, bring their new interim manager David Hopkin, who was interim manager once before under similar circumstances in 2003.

Fraserburgh are the only surviving nonleague team in the competition.

[Inverness win 4 - 0. Morton are out. Fraserburgh are out too. Motherwell are knocked out by Albion Rovers!]

Champions League Tuesday it was Celtic 0 - 3 Milan. Celtic cannot advance to the final 16, but they still have one more meaningless humiliating game to play in Group H.

Yesterday US Boulogne visited Amiens FC on Championnat National business. Amiens in Picardy is Boulogne's nearest divisional neighbour apart from Dunkerque. [0 - 0.]

Japanese Word of the Day: Shikishi

A shikishi is a squarish board of stiff white paper typically used as a vehicle for ink painting and calligraphy. A work of art created on shikishi can also be called shikishi, the same way an oil painting gets called a canvas. The shikishi format has been in use since the 12th century and is still going strong. Owing to its handiness for both drawing and writing with ink, shikishi is popular at meet-the-mangaka events today. The shikishi below was given to voice actress Uesaka Sumire by Kio Shimoku in honour of her work as the voice of Rika Yoshitaki in the Genshiken Nidaime anime. Sources: Top. Bottom. See also.

Doctor of Divinity

Grace United Church (née Methodist) at the corner of King and Ochterloney Streets in Dartmouth comes across as an eminently learned building. The flat roof and spreading buttresses of its Italianate tower share the lineaments of a Doctor of Divinity in his mortar board and robes, and the manner in which the tower seems to peer over the roofline it could be reading to the congregation from a very large Bible prior to delivering an hour-long sermon on some point of doctrine.

The Chink in Their Armour

Kill la Kill.

About the Inter-National League

Hockey is politics by other means. Russia's KHL, with clubs in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Latvia and Belarus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia, and soon Finland, fills a void left in the Russian soul by the departed USSR and Eastern Bloc, and prior to that, the Russian Empire. Austria's top hockey league the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga includes clubs from four former domains of the Habsburg Empire: the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Italy. Austria's second-flight Inter-National League, headquartered in Vienna, has four members of the former Austrian National League, five from the Italian Serie A2, and six from the Slovenian Hockey League.

The INL started last year with four Austria and two Slovenian clubs. This year they expanded to fifteen by incorporating the rest of the Slovenian league, and the Italian A2. The fifteen clubs each play 28 games, then the league continues play as three five-team groups, after which best-of-five quarterfinals, semifinals and finals determine a champion. I'll understand it better after I've seen it done once. There's no promotion/relegation mechanism between the EBEL and the INL. The Italian and Slovenian clubs also maintain ties to their national competitions.

The clubs are:

In Austria:

EHC Bregenzerwald. IHL champions 2012-13. Colours: Green, white and black. They play at Messestadion Dornbirn which seats 4,270. Bregenzerwald is in the northern part of Vorarlberg.

VEU Feldkirch. Founded in 1927, refounded in 2000. VEU Feldkirck are historically one of the most successful Austrian clubs. Nine-time Austrian champions, four-time champions of the Alpenliga, and winners of the IIHF's short-lived European Hockey League in 1997-98. They competed in the 1998 Spengler Cup. Their rink is the 5,200-seat Vorarlberghalle. Red, white and black. Feldkirch is in western Voralberg, within spitting distance of Liechtenstein.

EHC Lustenau. Founded 1970. Rink: the Rheinhalle Lustenau, which holds 2,200. Yellow and green. Lustenau is in northwest Vorarlberg.

Vorarlberg is Austria's westernmost state and the only one to border Switzerland. The local dialect is Swabian, like German-speaking Switzerland, rather than the Bavarian German of the rest of Austria. After World War One the people of Voralberg voted to become a Swiss canton, but their wishes were thwarted by the other Austrians, President Wilson, and a lot of the Swiss.

EK Zell am See. The Ice Bears. Blue and yellow. They finished first in the regular season last year. The Eishalle Zell am See has room for 3,200 spectators. Zell am See is on Lake Zell in the state of Salzburg.

In Italy:

All five of these clubs are located in South Tyrol, a chunk of Alpine territory taken from Austria at the end of World War One, and where the German language still predominates.

HC Neumarkt-Egna Wild Goose. Founded in 1963. Their arena holds 2,500, which is half the population of the town. Blue, red and white. Neumarkt or Egna is in South Tyrol.

HC Eppan Pirates. Founded 1981. Yellow and blue. Eisstadion Eppan can accommodate 1,500. Eppan is a little north of Neumarkt/Egna.

HC Gherdëina. Originally founded as HC Gröden in 1927. Four-time Italian champions. Red and blue. Their rink is the Eisstadion Pravines which holds 2,000. Gherdëina is the Ladin name for Val Gardena (in Italian) or Gröden (in German). Ladin is the very tiny Romance language spoken thereabouts.

SV Kaltern. Founded 1962. They play at the Palaghiaccio Kaltern (1,800). Red, white and black. Their logo features a pike, pickerel or muskellunge, I'm not sure which. Kaltern borders Eppan and Neumarkt. The Italian name is Caldaro. The English name would be Kettle.

HC Merano. Eagles. Founded 1968. Italian champions 1986 and 1999. Meranarena holds 3,500. Black and white.

The Italian teams continue to function as the Italian Serie A2 while they play in the INL. How? The Italian hockey authorities throw out the games involving non-Italian clubs and make a table out of what's left.

In Slovenia:

HKMK Bled. Founded 1999. Bled Ice Hall holds 1,000. Blue and white. Duck logo. The MK stands for youth category, so probably a junior team. Bled is a resort town on a glacial lake in northwestern Slovenia.

HK Celje. This junior club began in 1998 to replace an earlier club that folded in 1993. Blue and yellow colours. Golovec Ice Hall can take 500 Celje fans. Celje is east of Ljubljana.

Team Jesenice. This club stands in for the defunct HK Jesenice, one of the winningest hockey clubs in Yugoslavia (23 times champion) and Slovenia (9 times champion), which went out of business in 2012. Podmežakla Hall holds 5,900. Jesenice is in northwesternern Slovenia, on the Austrian border.

HDK Maribor. The Foxes. Tabor Ice Hall (capacity 1,000). Orange and black. Founded in 1993, they played in the Slovenian league until last year when they hooked up with the Croatian league. Maribor is on the Drava in eastern Slovenia.

HK Slavija. Founded 1964. Slavija played in the INL last year. Black, yellow, white. Zaloh Ice Hall holds 1,000 Slavija fans. Their home town Ljubljana is the Slovenian capital.

HK Triglav. Founded 1968. Thrice champions of the old Jugoslav League. They played in the INL last year. Blue and white. Their rink is the Arena Zlato polje in Kranj (capacity 1,000). Kranj is on the Sava just upstream from Ljubljana.

HDD Olimpija Ljubljana, eight-time Yugoslav champions and twelve-time Slovenian champions, play in the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga.

An annual Slovenian playoff championship continues and includes all the top Slovenian clubs regardless of where they played their regular season.

Prince Albert Road

Erhu

From the soundtrack of every Chinese film you like. Watch here. Notice how the bow passes between the strings.

Home to Livingston

Better living in Dunrod.

Livingston, in West Lothian, was one of five new towns built following World War Two to spread out the  overcrowded population of Glasgow. The others were Glenrothes, Irvine, East Kilbride and Cumbernauld. Greenock was already suffering an acute shortage of housing before the war (and through most of its history, to judge by James Dow's book), and this became more acute after the Blitz of May 1941, which took out about a 1,000 dwellings. So a plan was hatched to relocate a part of Greenock's population to a new town at Dunrod on the Inverkip Road. But it never happened.

Livingston visit Cappielow. [And win 1 - 5.] [Later that day: Allan Moore sacked.]

Morton have signed midfielder Jake Nicholson.

Today's match between Dumbarton and Alloa is postponed due to a frozen pitch, making today the official start of winter.

It's the Third Round of the Scottish Junior Cup. 64 clubs participate, including Largs Thistle who host Kilbirnie Ladeside, and last year's winner Auchinleck Talbot who visit Bo'ness United. Auckinleck regularly appear in both the Scottish Cup and the Scottish Junior Cup these days. They were narrowly eliminated by Stranraer in a Scottish Cup Round Three replay a couple of weeks ago. It's likely that Auchinleck Talbot were what the organizers of the Lowland League had in mind when they said they hoped to attract top junior clubs to the new league.

But the Match of the Day has to be the one between recent cup winners Linlithgow Rose (2010) and Shotts Bon Accord (2012).

[Largs advance. Auchinleck are out. Linlithgow Rose v Shotts Bon Accord postponed.]

What is a junior club, anyway? It's an amateur club. The senior clubs of the SPFL are either professional or part-time (or, as we say in North America, semi-professional)(except for Queen's Park). The senior/junior distinction has little to do with the age of the players. Senior clubs can field teenagers. Junior clubs can sign broken-down forty-year-olds.

The division of the national cup competition into Scottish Cup and Scottish Junior Cup is not paralleled in France, where thousands of clubs all compete for the Coupe de France.

Yesterday Boulogne hosted Luzenac AP from the Pyrenees near Andorra. Luzenac is the world capital of talcum powder production, so you can be sure they smell nice. [Luzenac win 0 - 2.]

The J-League Division 2 regular schedule wraps up today. Consadole Sapporo host 16th-place Giravanz Kitakyushu. Consadole enter today's play in seventh place, one spot out of a promotion playoff. If Consadole win today, and either JEF United Chiba or Tokushima Vortis lose, they're in. [But no. 0 - 0. Consadole finish in eighth place. Mito HollyHock finish 15th.]

A.B. Mitford Sums Up the Nô

    The subjects of the Nô are all taken from old legends of the country; a shrine at Miwo, by the sea-shore, marks the spot where the suit of feathers was found, and the miraculously forged sword is supposed to be in the armoury of the Emperor to this day. The beauty of the poetry -- and it is very beautiful -- is marred by the want of scenery and by the grotesque dresses and make-up. In the Suit of Feathers, for instance, the fairy wears a hideous mask and a wig of scarlet elf locks; the suit of feathers itself is left entirely to the imagination; and the heavenly dance is a series of whirls, stamps, and jumps, accompanied by unearthly yells and shrieks; while the vanishing into thin air is represented by pirouettes something like the motion of a dancing dervish. The intoning of the recitative is unnatural and unintelligible, so much so that not even a highly educated Japanese could understand what is going on unless he were previously acquainted with the piece. This, however, is supposing that which is not, for the Nô are as familiarly known as the master-pieces of our own dramatists.

A.B. Mitford, Tales of Old Japan (1871), volume one, pages 163-4.

Angels Cranking the Universe

British Library, Harley 4940 f.28. See here.