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Karthikeyan punished for impeding Schumacher Posted: 29 Oct 2011 07:36 AM PDT HRT Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan of India drives during the qualifying session for the Indian F1 Grand Prix at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi on October 29, 2011. ― Reuters pic NOIDA, Oct 29 ― Narain Karthikeyan, the only Indian in tomorrow's inaugural Indian Formula One Grand Prix, was handed a five-place penalty on the starting grid today for impeding Michael Schumacher in qualifying. The good news for the Chennai-born driver was that he qualified 22nd and will still start 23rd ― but on the clean side of the grid ― for struggling HRT after others also picked up penalties. Schumacher, the sport's most successful driver with seven championships and 91 wins, starts 11th for Mercedes. ― Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Abu Dhabi draw first blood in Volvo Ocean Race Posted: 29 Oct 2011 07:28 AM PDT Volvo Ocean Race boats cross the start line during the first in-port race in Alicante on October 29, 2011, a week before the official start of leg one between Alicante and Capetown. ― Reuters pic ALICANTE, Oct 29 ― Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing left their rivals trailing far behind to win a shortened opening in-port stage of the Volvo Ocean Race today as the 11th edition of the tough eight-month event got under way off Alicante, Spain. Skippered by British double Olympic silver medallist Ian Walker, Abu Dhabi took an early lead in their sleek black 70-foot yacht Azzam before storming across the line to claim the six points awarded for victory. Puma Ocean Racing, with Prince Carl Philip of Sweden on board, were second in the six-team race, more than 14 minutes down, and took five points. Camper were third, a further two minutes behind, and were awarded four points. The wind, which had earlier been gusting to around 17 knots, unexpectedly died in the middle stages leaving the huge vessels floundering just off the Spanish coast and prompting officials to shorten the race. "It's a great win and feels fantastic," Walker, who is leading the first Middle East bid to win the 65,000-km race, said in a television interview broadcast on the official website (http://www.volvooceanrace.com). "We rounded the first mark ahead but there was still a lot to do," added the 41-year-old. "It was very tricky (in the light air) and none of us were expecting it." Team Sanya, the first sole Chinese entry, were fourth (three points), Groupama, the first French entry since 1993-94, were fifth (two) and Team Telefonica of Spain sixth (one). The first ocean leg, for which 30 points are awarded to the winner, starts in Alicante on November 5 and ends in Cape Town, South Africa 10,800km away. ― Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Florence and the Machine team up with Karl Lagerfeld on new vinyl release Posted: 29 Oct 2011 01:57 AM PDT Florence and the Machine's limited-edition vinyl release for 'Shake It Out' — AFP pic LONDON, Oct 29 — Florence and the Machine just announced that they are teaming up with Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld to release a limited-edition vinyl of the latest single, "Shake It Out," due out October 31. The band is set to release a series of limited-edition singles in the coming months via The Vinyl Factory, and only 500 of the Lagerfeld collaboration will be up for grabs for £50 (RM249) a pop.  Each cover has been screen printed, silver foiled and hand numbered on a white card and features a series of photographic portraits of fashion icon Florence Welch taken by Lagerfeld. According to the release, each sleeve houses a 180-gram white vinyl contained in a silver inner bag. The record is the only physical release of "Shake It Out" and includes a remix by Canadian R&B star The Weeknd on the B-side.  Lagerfeld chose Welch as his muse for his collection at Paris Fashion Week last month.  The band is set to officially release its 12-track sophomore album, Ceremonials, also due out on October 31 in the UK/November 1 in the US. The new album is the follow-up to the chart-topping 2009 debut Lungs, which scored the band a Brit Award. A deluxe edition will feature additional tracks as well as demos and acoustic versions of select tracks on the new album. — AFP-Relaxnews Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Sean Penn to direct De Niro in ‘The Comedian’ Posted: 29 Oct 2011 01:39 AM PDT Actor Sean Penn has signed on to direct 'The Comedian' starring Robert De Niro. — AFP pic LOS ANGELES, Oct 29 — Actor Sean Penn has signed on to direct The Comedian, starring Robert De Niro as a down-and-out comic who wants to reclaim his fame.  The story follows the character after he hits a member of his audience with a microphone and is sentenced to community service.  Bridesmaids' Kristen Wiig will play De Niro's love interest, whom he meets at court-mandated community service and before turning his life around.  Production is scheduled in the spring, according to the report in The Hollywood Reporter.  Penn last directed the 2007 film Into the Wild starring Emile Hirsh (Milk), Vince Vaughn (Wedding Crashers) and Kristen Stewart (The Twilight Saga).  Last seen in The Tree of Life with Brad Pitt, Penn is currently filming Gangster Squad with Ryan Gosling (Drive), Emma Stone (The Help) and Josh Brolin (True Grit), due in theatres October 2012.  De Niro, who has appeared in the Fockers comedy franchise, was last seen in the thriller Limitless with Bradley Cooper and will appear with an all-star ensemble cast in New Year's Eve.  In 2012, he will release the drama Being Flynn co-starring Julianne Moore and play a rogue cop in Freelancers with Beau Garrett (Tron:Legacy).  Interestingly, the new film is a reminder of Scorsese's 1983 The King of Comedy, in which De Niro played an up-and-coming comic who stalks and kidnaps his idol, a famous comedian. — AFP-Relaxnews Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Killer whales migrate, study finds, but why? Posted: 29 Oct 2011 02:06 AM PDT Two killer whales in the austral seas off the Crozet archipelago. — AFP pic PARIS, Oct 29 — Some killer whales, a study published Wednesday shows for the first time, wander nearly 10,000 kilometres from Antarctica's Southern Ocean into tropical waters — but not to feed or breed.  Rather, these fearsome predators at the apex of the marine food chain traverse the sea at top speed — slowing as they reach warmer climes — to exfoliate, the study speculates. They are driven, in other words, by the urge or need to make their skin all shiny and new.  Despite our intense fascination with seal-chomping orcas, next to nothing was known about their long-haul movements, or whether they migrate at all.  To find out more, John Durban and Robert Pitman of the US National Marine Fisheries Service fitted a dozen so-called "type B" killer whales off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula with satellite transmitters.  In January 2009, the scientists used bolt-shooting crossbows to attached tags to the five-tonne mammals' dorsal fins from a distance of five to 15 metres.  "Type B" orcas inhabit the inshore waters of Antarctica near pack ice, the better to feed on seals and penguins. Type A killer whales prefer open water and a diet of minke whales, and the smaller, fish-eating type C is most common in the eastern Antarctic.  Half the satellite tags stopped working after three weeks, but the remaining six revealed a remarkable and unexpected wanderlust over the following two years.  "Our tagged whales followed the most direct path to the nearest warm waters north of the subtropical convergence, with a gradual slowing of swim speed in progressively warmer water," the authors note.  The whales made a beeline, cruising at up to 10 km/hr (six mph), across the southwest Atlantic east of the Falkland Islands to the subtropical waters off the coasts of Uruguay and southern Brazil.  The study, published in the British Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, provides the first direct evidence of long-distance migration by killer whales.  But why they do it remains something of a mystery. The speed and duration of the voyages, undertaken individually, did not leave enough time for prolonged foraging, and would have been too demanding for a new-born calf.  "Remarkably, one whale returned to Antarctica after completing a 9,400 kilometre trip in just 42 days," the study said.  The varied departure dates, between early February and late April, also suggested these expeditions were not annual migrations for feeding or breeding. Which is where skin comes into the picture.  Durban and Pitman suspect that killer whales move into warmer waters in order to shed a layer — along with an encrustation of single-celled algae called diatoms — without freezing to death.  Orcas are the smallest cetaceans — a group including whales and dolphins — which live for extended periods in subzero Antarctic waters.  Replacing and repairing outer skin in waters where the surface temperature is minus 1.9 degree Celsius may be dangerous, even lethal.  Surface temperatures at the killer whales' tropical destinations, by contrast, were a balmy 20.9 to 24.2 C.  "We hypothesise that these migrations were thermally motivated," the authors conclude.  Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are the most widely distributed cetacean  and perhaps mammal species — in the world. — AFP-Relaxnews Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Russian elite celebrate Bolshoi’s lavish revival Posted: 28 Oct 2011 10:56 PM PDT MOSCOW, Oct 29 — Russia's Bolshoi Theatre re-opened yesterday with an exclusive party to celebrate a luxurious renovation that has taken six years, cost US$700 million (RM2.17 billion) and revived a revered cultural symbol scarred by centuries of use and abuse. Politicians, billionaires, film directors and fashion designers of the Russian elite strolled the red carpet leading up to the cream-colored, eight-columned ballet and opera house that began life as a pet project by Empress Catherine the Great who founded it in 1776, the year the United States was born. People look at the illuminated Bolshoi Theatre on the eve of its reopening in Moscow on October 27, 2011. — Reuters pic "The Bolshoi is one of our greatest national brands so we are all celebrating the opening of the main building of the Bolshoi theatre," a black tie-clad President Dmitry Medvedev said on the grand stage. Medvedev paid tribute to all those involved in restoring lustre to a building that has been a physical witness to the rule of tsars, their brutal overthrow in the Bolshevik revolution, two world wars, the rise of the Soviet state, the collapse of communism and Russia's latest resurgence in a capitalist world. "I would like to thank all those who took part in the rebirth of our miracle, our great national brand — the Bolshoi Theatre," he told guests including Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian ballet legend Maya Plisetskaya, seated under a six-metre chandelier. He then took a seat in a gold-lined box where tsars and Soviet leaders sat for performances. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is seeking a return to the presidency in a vote next March, did not attend the performance as he had a prior arrangement with a financial policing body, his spokesman said. About 100 musicians and opera singers in orange and white hard hats and workmen's overalls took to the stage, where they burst into song performing "Slavsya" by the Russian 19th-century composer Mikhail Glinka. Outside, Kremlin guards clad in charcoal grey wool overcoats encircled a Bolshoi all lit up in blue and gold for the event which Russian art enthusiasts hope will cement Moscow's position as the arbiter of the classics. "The atmosphere is fantastic, the fact the theatre got finished is great," gushed Valentin Yudashkin, one of Russia's top fashion designers. The theatre, which has survived three fires, bombing in World War Two and was at one time perched above an underground river, has been restored to its opulent Tsarist beginnings, covered in gold leaf, and had cutting-edge acoustics added. After years of neglect and heavy use during Soviet times, the theatre was closed in 2005 for restoration. The Bolshoi Ballet troupe continued performing on the neighbouring, but smaller new stage. Yesterday's opening show featured top dancers such as Svetlana Zakharova and Maria Alexandrova, as well as guest opera singers including France's Natalie Dessay and Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana. A totally Russian repertoire was performed including pieces by composers Alexander Borodin, Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. Elaborate set changes and an electronic backdrop showing black-and-white animations of the Bolshoi were part of the two-hour gala performance, receiving rapturous applause from the 2,000 guests. Moscow city centre streets were grid-locked after security was beefed up to allow the guests in for a thoroughly Russian evening, which was broadcast live in Russia, Europe and the United States and live on video website Youtube. Italian actress Monica Bellucci, swathed in diamonds and dressed in a strapless crimson dress, joined Russian officials as they crowded into the theatre, lined with plush red chairs that have been tested for sound absorption. Rare pine wood applied to the walls also helps improve the quality of the sound, which has won praise from leading opera singers, and even two of the nearest stations of Moscow's sprawling metro will be soundproofed. The Bolshoi had world-class acoustics before the Communist era, when sound-reflecting gold was scraped off and stolen and the hollow cylinder underneath the orchestra, thought to be impractical, was filled with cement. Rigid Soviet-era seats have been replaced in the latest renovation with fewer, wider and more comfortable ones, cutting the number for the main stage to 1,720 from 2,200. But not everyone was pleased with the grand revamp. The Bolshoi's principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze has repeatedly told local media the old theatre's interior has been replaced with even cheaper material. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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Audit: Staf kerajaan salah guna dana akan dihukum, kata Husni Posted: 29 Oct 2011 02:04 AM PDT IPOH, 29 Okt ― Tindakan tegas akan diambil terhadap pegawai dan kakitangan mana-mana kementerian dan agensi yang menyalahgunakan peruntukan serta tidak mengikuti prosedur ditetapkan, kata Menteri Kewangan II Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah hari ini. Ahmad Husni (gambar) berkata, kerajaan tegas mengamalkan konsep akauntabiliti dan perkara itu jelas melalui laporan yang dibentangkan Ketua Audit Negara Isnin lalu. Tegas beliau, bagi menangani isu penyelewengan, kerajaan menyediakan sistem semak dan imbang, iaitu tindakan akan dikenakan kepada mereka yang terlibat dalam penyelewengan. "Ia perlu supaya mereka yang terlibat tidak terlepas daripada hukuman dan masalah penyalahgunaan peruntukan tidak berulang," katanya dipetik Bernama Online. "Mesej telah kita berikan kepada perkhidmatan awam di mana tindakan tegas harus diambil bagi meningkat kualiti, integriti dan kredibiliti perkhidmatan awam," katanya di sini hari ini. Sehubungan itu, beliau berkata, kerajaan mengarahkan semua pegawai membuat penyenaraian isu yang telah dibangkitkan dalam laporan audit berkenaan untuk tindakan lanjut. Selasa lalu, Ketua Setiausaha Negara Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan memberi jaminan kerajaan akan bertindak mengikut peraturan dalam berurusan dengan sembilan kementerian dan jabatan yang dilaporkan berbelanja melebih had sehingga mengakibatkan penggunaan peruntukan tambahan berjumlah RM3.73 bilion tahun lalu. Kata beliau, langkah-langkah sewajarnya akan diambil ekoran Laporan Ketua Audit Negara 2010 dikeluarkan semalam bagi memastikan kesilapan-kesilapan lalu tidak berulang. "Kami sedang mengambil tindakan susulan ekoran laporan (Ketua Audit) dan akan bertindak mengikut peraturan," kata beliau. Mohd Sidek juga memberitahu sidang akhbar bahawa laporan audit menunjukkan masih ada ruang untuk penambahbaikan. Laporan Ketua Audit Negara 2010 yang dikeluarkan Isnin lalu antara lain mendapati beberapa kementerian dan jabatan membelanjakan peruntukan untuk belanja mengurus melebihi jumlah yang ditetapkan. Menurut laporan berkenaan, peruntukan muktamad bagi perbelanjaan mengurus bagi 2010 ialah RM149.06 bilion, bertambah sebanyak RM10.78 bilion dari jumlah asal RM138.28 bilion. Bagaimanapun kata laporan itu, tambahan peruntukan ini masih belum mencukupi untuk menampung perbelanjaan berjumlah RM151.63 bilion iaitu melebihi RM2.57 bilion daripada jumlah yang diperuntukkan. Mengikut peraturan kewangan, sesuatu perbelanjaan hanya boleh dilakukan jika peruntukan kewangan yang diluluskan mencukupi. "Semakan audit mendapati peraturan ini tidak dipenuhi sepenuhnya oleh beberapa kementerian/jabatan yang telah berbelanja melebihi peruntukan. "Adalah juga didapati beberapa kementerian/jabatan tidak membelanjakan peruntukan/tambahan peruntukan yang diluluskan. "Ini menunjukkan masih ada kelemahan dari segi perancangan dan pengurusan perbelanjaan walaupun isu ini sering dibangkitkan," jelas laporan audit yang lewat dikeluarkan selama 17 hari dari tempoh pembentangan Belanjawan 2012. Menurut laporan itu lagi, analisis yang telah dijalankan terhadap perbelanjaan mengurus 2010 mendapati 138 kelemahan pengurusan perbelanjaan berjumlah RM360.96 juta. Sebanyak 75 kes perbelanjaan melebihi peruntukan berjumlah RM306.01 juta telah berlaku di 14 kementerian dan jabatan bagi bayaran perkhidmatan dan bekalan, aset serta pemberian dan kenaan bayaran tetap. Antaranya Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia, Kementerian Dalam Negeri, Kementerian Luar Negeri, Kementerian Luar Bandar dan Wilayah, Kementerian Pertahanan dan Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Awam. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

Pemuda Umno: Jualan asid perlu dikawal Posted: 29 Oct 2011 01:33 AM PDT KUALA LUMPUR, 29 Okt ― Kerajaan digesa mencari mekanisme tertentu seperti memperketatkan kawalan jual beli asid terutamanya cuka getah yang amat mudah didapati pada ketika ini bagi membendung kejadian simbahan asid. Pengerusi Biro Aduan Komuniti Pemuda Umno Datuk Khairun Aseh berkata kerajaan perlu bersungguh-sungguh melaksanakan perkara itu memandangkan kejadian tidak bertanggungjawab tersebut semakin berleluasa ketika ini dengan jumlah kes tertinggi pada tahun ini berbanding tahun lepas. "Bayangkan dengan hanya RM2.50, sebotol cuka getah yang mengandungi 125ml amat mudah didapati di kedai-kedai tanpa ada sebarang pertanyaan daripada sipenjual. Dengan modal itu jugalah masa depan seseorang itu boleh musnah begitu sahaja," katanya dipeti Bernama Online. Pada sidang media hari ini, beliau turut membawa dua beradik yang menjadi mangsa simbahan cuka getah oleh seorang lelaki di kampung mereka di Felda Jengka 9, Pahang pada 19 Julai lalu. Shafiq Haikal, 13, dan adiknya Shaffiy Aiman, 10, yang disimbah cuka getah ketika dua beradik itu pulang dari mengaji al-Quran di kampungnya, cacat di bahagian muka dan kini masih menerima rawatan susulan di Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL). Lelaki tersebut, yang merupakan penduduk di Felda berkenaan, didakwa pernah mengamuk di sebuah kedai makan menggunakan parang, baru-baru ini dikenakan hukuman lapan tahun penjara dan empat sebatan oleh Mahkamah Sesyen Temerloh. Khairun berkata walaupun balasan setimpal boleh dikenakan kepada suspek, namun fobia mangsa termasuk untuk meneruskan kehidupannya seperti biasa, amat sukar dilalui. "Sudah banyak menteri berkaitan mengajukan pekara ini di pelbagai saluran, tapi hakikatnya, asid begini masih mudah didapati di kedai-kedai. Apa yang mereka usahakan? Mereka perlu bersungguh-sungguh sekiranya tidak mahu ramai lagi orang awam menjadi mangsa. "Selepas ini, saya bercadang untuk menghantar memorandum kepada Menteri Kesihatan dan juga Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negeri Koperasi dan Kepenggunaan agar mereka bersama-sama berbincang untuk mengatasi perkara yang semakin parah ini," katanya yang turut menyerahkan wang tunai RM3,000 kepada dua beradik berkenaan bagi mengurangkan beban selain menjadikan mereka anak angkat. Sementara itu, bapa dua beradik itu, Mat Safar Zaidi, 33, berkata kedua beradik itu yang bercita-cita mahu menjadi polis dan doktor berkata pada mulanya sukar menerima kenyataan selepas tragedi itu. "Pernah saya bawa salah seorang mereka ke kedai untuk lihat sama ada mereka boleh sesuaikan diri dengan masyarakat atau tidak, tapi beberapa minit setibanya di kedai berkenaan, mereka lari meluru ke arah saya. Mungkin malu dengan pandangan masyarakat terhadap rupa mereka," kata bapa kepada empat anak ini. Kedua-dua mereka perlu mendapatkan rawatan susulan dua minggu sebulan di HKL, selain perlu memakai topeng untuk suatu ketika, dan meneruskan pembelajaran di dalam wad sementara menerima rawatan. Ibu dua beradik itu, Rohashimah Mansor, 33, tidak menduga perkara terbabit akan berlaku kepada dua anaknya yang dilakukan oleh seorang lelaki yang tinggal bersama ibunya di kampung tersebut. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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EPL dream team: The best of Manchester reserves Posted: 28 Oct 2011 06:34 PM PDT OCT 29 — The inspiration for this article comes from a Tottenham Hotspur fan in Malaysia. During an online chat session on a Spurs supporters' website, this fan, who carried the online moniker St Helder, drew attention to both the Manchester clubs' reserves bench during their big clash at Old Trafford last Sunday. He suggested that the Manchester United and Manchester City benches would make a formidable team by themselves and that such a combined team could make a strong challenge in the Premiership too. And why not? After all, the calibre of both teams' multi-million pound reserve players will be enough to shake up the English Premier League (EPL) and even take on the likes of Chelsea, let alone the rest of the Premiership. United's reserve team goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard has proven that he has the quality and ability to challenge first-choice David de Gea for a spot between the posts and is even comparable to City's Joe Hart. He has already played in several matches in the Champions League this season and might even resent being only a reserve goalkeeper over time and come to regret not moving for more regular football elsewhere. At centreback, Argentina's Pablo Zabaleta has become a personal favourite of mine because the South American nation has a tradition of producing quality defenders. He is clean and solidly effective in the way he covers at the back. Additionally, he likes to do overlapping runs to help out in attack and definitely is a player with a strong winning mentality and spirit within him. Also on the bench in last Sunday's Manchester derby was Alexandar Kolarov. The Serbian is a doggedly persistent defender while also possessing a strong left foot, especially when taking free kicks. The pair of Phil Jones and Kolo Toure in the centre of defence makes for an ideal partnership as it is a combination of a young up-and-coming player with an experienced player who has won the league before while playing for Arsenal. Jones is a player with flair and stylish control of the ball despite being a defender. He is also bold enough to go on the offensive. Toure, on the other hand, was a pillar at the heart of the City defence before he was suspended from playing for allegedly consuming a banned substance, said to be a performance-enhancing drug. He still hasn't reclaimed his place in the first team since returning from the ban. Such a line of defence — comprising Toure, Jones, Kolarov and Zabaleta — will be difficult to be breached by any team in Europe, let alone the EPL. In midfield, having a world-class player such as Nigel de Jong as a defensive midfielder, supported by Park Ji-sung on the left wing and Antonio Valencia on the right wing is a dream line-up for me. Then, if we add the agile Samir Nasri as a playmaker, this team will be strengthened simply by having one of the best players in the world as its mastermind pulling the strings from the middle of the pitch. In attack, strikers Javier Hernandez and Edin Dzeko will bring different qualities to every game but combined, they will pose a variety of problems to opponents. Hernandez has his quick runs to find space and create danger while Dzeko, as targetman, will simply produce goals from any corner of the world. To summarise, the starting line-up for this totally hypothetical Manchester Ci-nited team of second stringers could be as follows — in the 4-3-1-2 formation: Lindegaard; Zabaleta, Jones, Toure, Kolarov; Valencia, de Jong, Ji Sung; Nasri; Dzeko, Hernandez. Such a team is more than capable of having a shot at the EPL title... provided no one gets injured of course. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

A change in the balance of power in Manchester? Posted: 28 Oct 2011 06:26 PM PDT OCT 29 — What a weekend that was. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard the hugely shocking news that Manchester United lost 6-1 at home to their traditional enemies Manchester City. Yes, you read that right, it was 6-1, and it was at Old Trafford. If you're not a follower of the English Premier League (EPL), I'm sure that bit of news still managed to reach your radar through the normal media channels, or even from fans of other EPL clubs taunting Manchester United fans, and of course from Manchester City fans themselves. When a club has been as incredibly successful as Manchester United has been in the EPL era, it is natural for some fans of other clubs to get sick of seeing the same team winning over and over again, but it is also natural to have some fair-weather fans join the Manchester United brigade whose only reason for being seem to be to gloat about how great their club is, so much so that you'd think that they're actually the Manchester United players who sweated and fought for all the glory. That is why Manchester United fans generally have a bad reputation among fans of other clubs, even though there are also huge sections of their fandom who are perfectly reasonable and humble people and who just love the football being played, but being the rational people that they are, they will never be as loud as the loud and obnoxious "glory hunters", so it's the glory hunters who are unfortunately the "face" and "voice" of Manchester United fans to most normal people. So last Sunday's 6-1 result (God, how I love writing that scoreline over and over again!) was simply lovely to all us non-Manchester United fans just to see the reaction of the "glory hunters." Not only did their team lose to the "noisy neighbours", but they were humiliated by that unbelievable scoreline, and all this at home in front of their very own fans. After years of suffering on our part having to listen to the "glory hunters" gloat and gloat endlessly, it's beautiful to see them stunned into silence, and struggling to come up with lame excuses for the humiliating loss. Some in the media have even boldly claimed that this earth-shattering result signals a seismic shift in the balance of football power in Manchester, and by the same implication in the EPL, as Manchester City has, for the last two seasons threatened to break into the top two with hundreds of millions of pounds being invested into their team by their rich owners. Their impressive start to this season, which has seen their players finally gelling together as a cohesive unit, has made a lot of people think that winning the EPL this season is not a far-fetched proposition anymore. Couple that with the loud chorus that "one of these days Manchester United will get a pasting because of their shaky defence and soft centre of a midfield" that's been ringing for the last couple of matches, then this result can even seem inevitable. Against Liverpool they were poor, but even against Norwich they were lucky because if Norwich had striking firepower of slightly better calibre, Manchester United might have even got a shelling then. Of course if you've been watching the Manchester derby, when it was 11 vs 11 players in the first half, Manchester United didn't do that bad as it was frankly a dull match with both teams playing with caution and mostly battling it out in the middle of the park. Manchester City carved out only one opportunity but made it count by turning it into a goal. But sitting back and waiting to counter attack is a sensible strategy when you're the away team, especially at a ground as tough as Old Trafford. It was Manchester United who were slightly disappointing for failing to test Joe Hart in any serious manner in the first half, but still the way they played in that first half may at worse result in a draw, which still wouldn't be too bad. Starting the second half quite brightly and with more attacking impetus, Manchester United practically shot themselves in the foot when Jonny Evans was handed a red card for a silly foul, and with one man less and in their attempts to find a goal to at least salvage a point, they were left horribly exposed at the back against attacking opposition of City's quality. Even as a non-United fan, I wouldn't put too much stock on this result signalling a shift in the balance of power yet, as manager Sir Alex Ferguson has won the EPL with even worse teams than the one he has this year. And I'm sure he gave the full hairdryer treatment to all those players who seemed to have given up when there were still around 10 more minutes to play against City. For all we know things might even be back to normal come December when the games pile up, as Ferguson has long utilised this busy part of the football calendar to catch up on some points against his rivals. But for now, at least, we can enjoy the noise from the noisy neighbours, and the beautiful silence from the "glory hunters." * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS.

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