Our client, a large country of 80 million people in the middle of Europe, seeks a trainer for its national football team. This is a cabinet-level appointment with hero/villain status and offers an attractive six-figure salary (with additional pension, life insurance and dental benefits). Working with a squad of 23 highly unimaginative individuals, the national trainer is expected to do the impossible: bring the team past the first round of the 2006 World Cup. The duration of the post is two years with the possibility of a 10-year extension.

Your immediate role is to restore the brand presence, providing enterprise, direction and vision, all of which are noticeably lacking. You are likely to be male and come from a German-speaking family, with experience of internecine strife and generating revenue. An understanding and affinity with the comparative decline of nations would be appreciated.

To arrange a confidential discussion, please contact Gerhard Schröder or Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder on 0049 69 6788-10 or e-mail gerhard @hotmail.com. Alternatively visit http://www.dfb.de/.

Closing date: Friday 2 July. Our client is not an equal opportunity employer.

Damn! Where are those peace activists when we need them? Remember those hundreds of thousands who hit the streets last year filled with indignation about the impending change of Saddam's status from dictator to prisoner? If you see them, and you can't miss their rainbow-coloured garb, say that they're wanted back on the beat because a million defenceless people need protecting, urgently:

That's Joseph Siegle writing in The Christian Science Monitor. Read his report. It will shock you. Want more? Here's a story saying that the Sudanese government's Janjaweed Arab militia has been accused of engaging in mass rape. Enough horror there to keep the "activists" protesting for some time to come, eh? Small problem, though. A news report from yesterday says: "Thousands of Sudanese refugees have rushed to welcome US Secretary of State Colin Powell in a camp in the troubled western province of Darfur. They shouted and cheered, following his motorcade round the Abu Shouk camp." But isn't that the same Colin Powell who...? What's he doing in Sudan? It must be the oil, right?

The terrifying swell depicted on the cover of the "Nordic Days" album is not the "snotgreen, scrotumtightening sea" of James Joyce's Irish shores, but the navy-black, mutinous water that washes coasts from Iceland to Russia.

What you get when you buy "Nordic Days" is a collection of new tracks, b-sides, remixes and white labels. The music ranges from electro to low-fi rock and the artists include Sigur Ros, Goldfrapp, Obersoundz and Jori Hulkkonen. Only Red Fish, with "Winter Skies", directly address the subject on the album cover. The others leave it to the listener's imagination to connect the very vague Scandinavian sounds with the elements. Cool, not cold, is the emotion here and the result is chill out music of high quality.

A leap of imagination is required to establish a link between "Nordic Days" and "Songs From The Cold Seas", but taking music about large bodies of cold water as a common bond between them, it can be done. Producer Hector Zazou gathered together some really big names for the album a decade ago but Columbia didn't do very much to push it so it kind of sank out of sight, which was a great pity indeed.

So who was involved? Well, Bjork, Susanne Vega, John Cale, Jane Siberry and Siouxsie to mention but a few. Actually, dozens of artists contributed to this soundscape of the Arctic Ocean. Highlights? Bjork singing in Icelandic over keyboards and clarinet. "Visur Vatnsenda-Rosu" is one of the finest things she's ever done. "Adventures In the Scandinavian Skin Trade" is something entirely different. The muffled beat, the hi-tech chirruping and the singing of Vimme Saari hint at the electronic approach that would eventually lead to "Nordic Days". Siouxsie does the vocals on "The Lighthouse", giving it a murky trip-hop feel. These modern moments are balanced by tracks such as "Oran Na Maighdean Mhara", which comes from the Gaelic tradition that was once nourished by the fruit of the Arctic Ocean.

Hector Zazou's liner notes help put this extraordinary mixture of music in its natural perspective:

"The Arctic Ocean can feel utterly silent on a summer day to an observer standing far above. If you lowered a hydrophone, however, you would discover a sphere of 'noise' that only spectrum analyzers and tape recorders could unravel. The tremolo moans of bearded seals. The electric crackling of shrimp. The baritone boom of walrus. The high-pitched bark and yelp of ringed seals. The clicks, pure tones, birdlike trills, and harmonics of belukhas and narwhals. The elephantine trumpeting of bowhead whales. Added to these noises would be the sounds of shifting sediments on the sea floor, the whine and fracture of sea ice, and the sound of deep-keeled ice grounding in shallow water."

"Songs From The Cold Seas" is an astonishing assembly of sounds and voices. Given that the subject is the Arctic Ocean, this is not exactly party music, but it is a beautiful and valuable recording.

Because membership of Orkut is by invitation only, and because some people I know haven't been invited to join, they've got a particularly bad bout of status anxiety.

What's Orkut? It's "a community of friends and trusted acquaintances that connects individuals through a social network that grows person by person." Orkut is one of the "better" names in the rapidly crowding field of social networking services. Friendster still leads the pack, but Microsoft is countering with something called Wallop and that should shake things up a bit. Meanwhile, Orkut is hot. What makes it so sexy is that it is affiliated with Google and members clearly hope that some of that old IPO magic might rub off on them. Where did it get its weird name? From the Google engineer who developed it, Orkut Buyukkokten. Raised in Ankara, educated in Mönchengladbach and now working in Palo Alto, he's the personification of all that makes Google global.

Anyway, I'm a member of Orkut, which says a lot about me and the people I know, or don't know, as the case may be. You're not? Oh, dear. Still, your pain is felt by Alain de Botton, the bestselling author of The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel. His latest book is entitled Status Anxiety and it addresses where worries about our status come from and what we can do to conquer them.

According to de Botton, to have status is to feel "loved". He says:

"To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern. Our presence is noted, our name registered, our views listened to, our failings treated with indulgence and our needs administered to. Under such care, we flourish. There may be differences between romantic and status forms of love — the latter has no sexual dimension, it cannot end in marriage, those who offer it usually bear secondary motives — and yet the beloved in the status field will, just like romantic lovers, enjoy protection under the benevolent gaze of others.

Alain de Botton believes that we are programmed to sense how a community perceives us. To be ignored is not only unpleasant, it is also unhealthy, he claims. Saddened by disregard, we are pleased by attention. Without praise, smiles and compliments, we are without love and status. In other words, without that Orkut invitation...

Now the US has formally handed over power in Iraq, something the French and Germans had been clamouring for since Saddam's exit, the demand for nation builders will be greater than ever. It's a wild place, though, Iraq, and the builders will need protecting for some time to come. Apropos, here's something DevNetJobs sent me:

Position: Security Escorts in Iraq

Eligible Nationalities: All

Remuneration: $6,000 a month, food, accommodation and transportation.

Start Date: As soon as possible

Brief Description: 6 month Security Escorts in Iraq contracts are available to work in a team of internationals and Iraqis to guard convoys from point A to point B. All nationalities are welcome to apply. If interested to gain training experience, this is a great opportunity. Previous military experience, willingness not to be coddled and get a job done is desired. $6,000.00 US a month. Transportation to and from Iraq, accommodation and food are provided. Please apply at: securityescortsinIraq@hotmail.com.

Oh, and tell them Rainy Day sent you! Good luck, nation builders!

Martin Amis may be in Uruguay but distance has neither sapped his strength nor dulled his incisive wit. In The Guardian, in a piece called "We have to face it: English football is just no good", he lands some savage blows during his analysis of last week's England-Portugal quarter final:

Amis, it turns out, is a rather shrewd observer of the game. The following paragraph is excellent:

Don't you love that bit about the "two haring midgets up front"? But it gets better:

Hilarious. Deadly. Where can England go from here? The fresh start suggested by Martin Amis is unlikely to take place so "the crouched supporter" can expect to see Beckham and pals get to Germany in 2006 and then exit, as usual, during the quarter finals. Shame.

Portugal, Greece, Holland and the Czech Republic have made it to the semi-finals of Euro 2004. Let's look back before looking forward. Portugal and England delivered a fantastic game and the fact that the English are out has more to do with their fatal mistakes against France in that awful first round 1-2 loss than anything else. Speaking of France, all praise to Greece for exposing what so few wanted to see: the complete bankruptcy of the French game. The Greeks are the most defensive of the four teams remaining but their act will be exposed on Thursday night when they meet Milan Baros and his mates. And Holland? This is a marvellous side and capable of greatness. Wednesday's night clash with Portugal should be a classic. The game of the tournament, perhaps.

No tears shed here for the dull, er, diligent Danes and the stolid, er, solid Swedes. Both teams lacked ideas and it would have been unjust if they had barged their way into the semi-finals. So who'll meet next Sunday in the final? The Czech Republic versus the winners of Portugal-Holland, of course. The latter result is impossible to call. The Portuguese played below the abilities against Greece, and lost. They then played above their abilities against England, and won. So it's impossible to say how they'll react to the fluid Dutch game. Watch this space.

Your blogger took part in today's Munich City Half Marathon and finished in the very respectable time of one hour, forty three minutes and fifty nine seconds. Warm and humid, it was, when the brave 8,000 set out, and warmer and more humid, it was, when they arrived back at the point from whence they departed. The exercise can be summed up using a triple A formula: Anticipation, Agony, Achievement.

Sincere thanks to my dedicated personal trainer, Carol Scheunemann, who has done a great job in bringing me to this point. The goal, the New York City Marathon, awaits on 7 November, and we're bang on target for a good time. And a very big thank you to the Rainy Day wife who was there at the finish line, waving and smiling. Without the support of these two great people, I wouldn't have made it to the starting line, never mind the finish.

Why subject oneself voluntarily to the kind of pain involved in running 21K? You'll find the answer in the King James Bible, I Corinthians 9:24-25: "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain." And obtain we did.

Happy, smiling faces will be seen on Tuesday in Bukoto, a suburb of Kampala, when the East African Centre for Open Source Software is opened there. The Ugandan institution hopes to skill up some 200 students from as far away as Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. The venture is made possible through the partnering of Uganda Martyrs University, Linux Solutions and the International Institute of Communication and Development, which has grant aided the venture with €140,000.

Can it really be 12 months since Salam Pax signed off? OK, I know he's popped up here and there since and he's been busy with other projects: the book, for one, and the occasional blogging stint at The Guardian, but for most of us his name and his fame will forever be connected with battle for Baghdad and its aftermath. Here's his penultimate post last year. As always, it captures life (and death) in Baghdad perfectly, and the writing is superb:

Salam Pax, there, in classic form. Here's hoping he'll be back to comment on the hand over of authority on Wednesday.

Paulo Querido, journalist and founder of the largest blog platform in Portugal, puts last night's drama between England and Portugal in the Estadio Da Luz in its proper perspective:

BTW, Paulo uses Movable Type 3.0 to power his platform, Weblog.com.pt, which hosts more than 1,000 Portuguese blogs.

Regardless of where one stands on Iraq, yesterday's carnage in which up to 100 people lost their lives and hundreds more were horribly injured should leave us in no doubt that those who wish to derail the country's embryonic democracy are the personification of evil. We should also remember that this is the week in which the depraved face of Islamofascism showed itself again when its adherents beheaded the 33-year-old South Korean interpreter Kim Sun-il.

Bearing these events in mind, see what you think of this:

I don't know about you, but I find this to be a moral travesty. That the mass murderers of yesterday and the barbaric killers of Kim Sun-il could be associated with D-Day, could be even mentioned in the same breath, is disgusting. And where did these words appear? On some jihadist website calling for rivers of infidel blood? No. Actually, they were published on Wednesday in The Guardian. The writer is Karma Nabulsi, a research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and author of the book Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance and the Law.

The Guardian holds an honoured position in news reporting, and rightly so, but of late it has abandoned any pretence of impartiality in the Iraq question and turned itself into a redoubt of all that's worst in British journalism, a profession that's already severely tarnished, given the falsification scandals involving the BBC and the Daily Mirror. It's only a matter of time now before The Guardian goes the same way. It has invested so much in its anti-Bush-Blair vendetta that disaster is inevitable. There was a time when a responsible editor at The Guardian would have taken the blue pencil to the Karma Nabulsi piece, but that day is long gone. "An intellectual hatred is the worst," wrote W. B. Yeats in Michael Robartes and the Dancer and, you know, there's great truth in that observation. The intellectual hatred that's found safe haven at The Guardian is particularly sinister because it perverts the truth, makes a mockery of journalism and is corroding a once noble institution that played a central role in providing the public with reliable information and honest opinion.