It's beginning to look a lot like BOXING DAY!

Well, after a few consecutive poor poor performances against semi-decent teams, the proud, proud Magpies and the Toon Army all wanted rethink this whole Sam Allardyce thing. Then, after a couple consecutive results against bottom of the table sides (my apologies, beloved Fulham fans. God bless ya) it seems as though Sam is, once again, a brilliant genius-savior, and we'll be in the Champions League for sure next season.

Sorry Geordies, it just doesn't work like that - in either direction. Nevermind the fact that I'm resigned to watch high-school level footy being played every time I wish to cheer on my team, but after ANY result, no matter what it is, I'm going to have to hear some polarizing, over-inflated discussion about Sam and his boys. And its not only NUFC - almost a quarter of premiership teams have seen their managers handed the sack so far this season - and it's not even halfway through. Well, the good news is that (besides good ol' Newcastel United) some of the ACTUAL FOOTBALL we're seeing this season is absolutely fantastic. The drama is high, the attendance is high, the scoring is up, and for the most part, games are very, very entertaining. This past week saw the most dramatic of fixtures, plotting the big four against each other, and an estimated 600 MILLION people watched all over the world.
(Here's a little tip for us American viewers - http://www.skysports.com/ has a wonderful feature on Saturdays called Soccer Saturday, which EVEN WE can stream live on our pc's. It's from 9-11 every saturday morning and it basically consists of 6 guys in room watching all the matches and telling you everything that's happening, as it happens. Unfortunately, due to contractual regulations, they can't actually show any of the MATCHES - but it makes for a good two hours.)

So anyway, Newcastle have won two straight, with Derby coming up at home. We should win this one - but we've shown this season that no fixture is a sure thing - especially Derby. (The last place team in the league, who's only win (I think) came against us) All the NUFC supporters are AGAIN saying idiotic things like "If we don't score 6 goals, I'm considering this a loss" and they actually think this might happen. Fools. I'll be happy with another poor, awful to watch, long ball, ground out 1-0 victory. Because, let's be honest here, under Big Sam, that's all we're going to be seeing for a few years.

Check out this article, Time Magazine's top ten pieces of architecture of the year. I mostly agree with it. Here are photos that I gathered for those who don't have time to click the mouse.

#1
Bloch Building, Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art addition, Kansas City, Mo.
Steven Holl Architects

#2 Federal Building, San Francisco Morphosis

#3 Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Weiss/Manfredi

#4 IAC Headquarters, New York Frank Gehry Partners

#5 The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Sanaa

#6 Olympic Stadium, Beijing

#7 CCTV Headquarters, Beijing

#8 Linked Hybrid, Beijing

#9 Heathrow Five, London

#10 Caja Madrid Tower, Madrid