İlker Uğur

Yes i am in London for business. Although i took an afternoon off and spent it around some famous places. It is my first time here.

Here is the list of what i bought from this great city:

Edge Magazine

Wired UK Edition

Monocle

When Saturday Comes Magazine

The Winning Mind: Sebastian Coe

For Richer For Poorer: Victoria Coren

The Return of the Economic Naturalist: Robert H Frank

The Damned Utd: David Peace

Why England Lose and other curious football phenomena explained: Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

I am sad and happy that i do not live here. Sad because i am away from great bookshops and collectibles for fair prices. Happy because i can not afford these anyway.

Final part of moving my house series came at last.

There is no perfect movers in moving business.

I moved my house 2 times in Istanbul. One with 21movers and second one with Çolakoğlu Nakliyat. The difference between two firms were minimal. However 21movers is far more expensive. They offered me 1100TL and i did the job done for 600TL.

1- If you want it done quickly, pack your stuff beforehand. Especially books.

2- Don’t expect politeness from the movers. As each firm gets movers from the suburbs of the city. Some of them do not even speak Turkish.

3- Decide on what you keep and what you move. This way you will get rid of all the garbage.

4- Decide on the places of all furniture in the new house. Keep close eye on movers while they are moving as they can become careless.

5- Never pay upfront.

6- Keep your distance with the movers. Change the keys of the new apartment after you move.

7- Even though you got your house moved there will be tons of stuff need taken care of in your new house. You will be to tired that day. You need at least a day to recover.

Hadahaa Island of the Maldives is the home of Alila Villas. One of the best holiday resorts you can get.

There are 50 villas on the island, 14 of which is located on the sea. There is island wide Wi-Fi connection on the island as well.

If i become rich man making money on the net, i will buy one of these villas and live there.

Today as i was watching The Crucible i thought of the modern times. It was based on Arthur Miller’s play in 1950s. The events took place in Salem in 1692.

100 years ago women were never considered as the paramount figure of our communities. Their duty was to give birth to kids and raise them properly in line with religious books mostly.

Today women are very active in our society and i am very happy about this. The change in 100 years is amazing. It happened in a good way. (Surely there are places in the world where women are considered as second class citizens and sometimes withches.)

Look at the technology and the speed things are changing. The pace of techbology is 100 times faster than 100 years probably.

Healthcare on the other hand. Millions were dying of a plague several centuries ago. Now the population is skyrocketing. Not a good thing always but life expectancy is raising every year.

Human rights have become really important in the last century. Laws are adapted to the needs of modern times in many countries.

Crime is high and human nature is still trying to cope with the burdens of life.

Wars are not over and probably won’t ever be.

However i believe that with such change in the last century it is fair to call these times as a golden age. You never know whether you are at your prime as you follow better options all the time. I believe it is the same for humanity. Greeks never knew it was their golden age until it ended.

We will probably feel the same when hit by an unexpected catastrophy. Then we will say “Do you remember those times? ” I wonder when will this come and whether i will see it or not.

Note: In Civilization game series Golden Age of a civilization lasts for 20 turns, around 100 years. Sid Meier is an expert in those things.

The final feature list arrived, i share the ones i find most interesting with you…

Attend a match to better the success of your job application – If you declare interest in a job, and then attend a match, you increase your chances of getting the job for taking an interest, and get a news item talking about your attendance.

Board view on sales and signings – Your club board now give feedback on player sales as well as player purchases

Glenn Hoddle Academy – The addition to the game of the Glenn Hoddle academy, an academy where released UK players can go and get training for up to two years. If you play in the UK or Spanish leagues, you’ll play against their team in a friendly each year. All teams have the opportunity to buy the GHA players at any time, transfer window permitting.

Sugar Daddy expansion – Sugar Daddy is our way of being able to deal with owners who flood money into clubs – we now have different levels of Sugar Daddy for the different types of owner, to make the game even more financially realistic.

Team talks for subs – You can now do team talks for substitutes prior to sending them onto the pitch.

Fancy a hat-trick – If a player has scored 2 goals in a match and his team gets a penalty, he’ll likely be given the ball to take the pen even if he’s not the regular penalty taker.

Team suggestions from the fans – Comments from fans on team selection post match, which tells you who has played well, or what aspect of the team’s play they liked the best.

Press conference overhaul – Huge improvements to press conferences to give more in-situ questions, new signings press conferences, better logic for the order that the questions are asked, questions about transfer rumours etc.

Local media at press conferences – Media source code has been reworked so that local region media sources now appear at press conferences, rather than just those based in the same city as the team.

I saw this great coffee shop in Monocle Issue 27.

It is in London and owned by Ben Townsend. It is only 10 square meters and perfectly decorated.

You can visit the shops webpage here.

Photo is courtesy of: everydaylifestyle.wordpress.com

This is the trailer for Football Manager 2010. Demo is coming next week and i believe millions are looking forward to it.

It will 6 months playable and will be released first on Daily Mirror’s website.

That’s a very nice photoset and it can be found on Arda Turan’s facebook fan page. This is my favourite photo.

Here you can see some pictures of Namba Parks.

The architecture looks great and amazingly the main colour you see is green. Terrace gardens which are very popular in Japan evolved into forests with that project.

It is situated near a train station and consists residential and commercial estates in one big project. Looks like Kanyon in İstanbul however seems to have more to offer.

It was built by Jerde Partnership and won the award for Urban Land Institute Award of Excellence.

1- Simply fantastic. An excellent game getting better every year.

2- Superb user interface, easy to learn, really hard to master.

3- Assistant advices are really helpful. The advices of the assistant, scouts or any other staff member can be backed up or dismissed. There is a second and third opinion option.

4- More realistic media interface. However press conferences are still boring.

5- 3D Graphic Engine is working much much better. It is a joy to watch the game.

6- Pitchside instructions are working OK. They are hard to master. Shortcuts are not really shortcuts. Again takes time to learn.

7- Galatasaray season expectation is title challenger and in the beginning of the season odds are 6-1. Whereas Beşiktaş and Fenerbahçe are only 2-1.

8- Harry Kewell, Hakan Balta, Mehmet Güven are the wanted players when the game starts. Harry Kewell is willing to leave. When i loaned Mehmet Güven Arda Turan became furious claiming M. Güven was a great asset. Not the most realistic feature.

9- In the first day the assistant offers you to see the team by organising a match with U20 team. I was pretty unlucky in that as i lost 3 players in a training match.

10- In the team talk you can say some new things to players such as “Impress Me”.

11- Transfer budget of Galatasaray is 2,6 million pounds. 

12- This game deserves Turkish language option and official Turkish league updates.